


Come Josephine in my Flying Machine

by Call_Me_Kayyyyy (Cheeky9274), Ginny_Potter



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist!Steve, Canon-Typical Violence, Fanart, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Memory Loss, Mentions of Blood, NSFW Art, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rich!Bucky, Rimming, Romance, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, Stucky Media Mini Bang, Stucky Media Mini Bang 2019, Suicidal Thoughts, Titanic!AU, World War I, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:07:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 66,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23175949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheeky9274/pseuds/Call_Me_Kayyyyy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginny_Potter/pseuds/Ginny_Potter
Summary: This is a story of choices and bets and life-changing moments. It is a story of human errors and gambles and suffering. It is, most of all, a story of love.It’s April 15th, 1912 when Rebecca Barnes’ receives a telegram that says that her brother does not appear among the survivors of the wreck of the mighty Titanic.It’s April 10th, 1912 when James Buchanan Barnes – almost bankrupt and with a priceless heirloom in his pocket – leaves Southampton aboard the most luxurious airship in the world, to meet his fate in the far away lands of the United States of America. Outwardly, he is everything a well brought up member of the aristocracy should be. Inside, he is screaming.It’s April 10th, 1912 when Steve Rogers – air in his lungs, a few blank sheets of paper, used to sleep under bridges – wins a lucky hand at poker and ends up on the jewel of Howard Stark, airshipbuilder extraordinaire, not knowing that in a few hours he will save someone’s life and drink champagne with fine people.It’s the night between April 14th and 15th, 1912 when the unsinkable Titanic flies too low, hits an iceberg and disappears in the icy waters of the northern Atlantic.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 96
Kudos: 100
Collections: Stucky Media Mini Bang 2019





	1. Ex chalybe effecti (April 16th, 1912)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone,
> 
> Welcome to our Steampunk Titanic AU! I really have no idea how I managed to get to the end of this. I think I replotted this five times.
> 
> First of all, I want to thank my amazing, fantastic, absolutely over the top artist, [Kay](https://call-me-kayyyyy.tumblr.com), who has created such gorgeous art for this fic and has patiently accepted every single one of my replots, I really have no words for how awesome she is.  
> Secondly, thanks to the mods of the Stucky Media Mini Bang for organising this! You wanted it mini, I wrote almost 70.000 words. Well.  
> Thirdly, Nonny who prompted this, I really hope this is something you will enjoy! I did my best and I hope you'll like it as much as I loved writing it!  
> Then, Marta, thank you for helping out with the plot, thank you for beta reading this monstrum and thank you for keeping up with my weirdness; any remaining mistake is mine.  
> Finally, last but not least, R, your infinite knowledge about anything is always priceless.
> 
> I tried to be as faithful to the time period and the type of universe as possible. I did take some liberties, though. Please, point out to me if there are horrible mistakes. English is not my first language, I had this betaed and dearest Kay read it too, but any remaining mistakes are mine, so please let me know. Also, I have tried to write this in American English, but I am more familiar with British English so there might be mistakes of that kind. Again, I will be happy to better myself.
> 
> I will post **around three chapters a day** , so that it will be **all online by March 23rd** , as per timeline.
> 
> To all the people reading this while self-isolating: I hope it brings you some solace, we all need it right now. Stay safe and stay at home as much as possible.
> 
> Lots of love.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The old Lord Wintar used to read The Times at breakfast, nothing else. Every morning, he walked down the staircase, closely followed by his yellow Labrador retriever; he entered the breakfast room, said his good morning to the butler, and then waited for Mark I, their old reliable automatic footman, to lift the lid of the first chafing dish on the right. When he peeked inside, it was as if he expected to be surprised by its contents. After that, he gathered a small cup of seasonal fruit from the mechanical hand that was offering it and sat down, opening The Times and starting to read.

Since he had died, a little more than a year before, Lady Rebecca, the oldest of the Barnes sisters, decided to proceed in the exact same way, just to keep his memory alive; she repeated his gestures, his small, apparently insignificant habits, to pretend that half the house was not still covered in linens and tarps. The morning of April 16th, 1912 was supposed to be no exception.

But alas.

“Rebecca, wake up.”

Her eyelids fluttered as the voice of her mother breached the soft comfort of sleep.

“Rebecca,”

She mumbled something, then raised herself up on one elbow. “Mama?” she blinked.

The dim light of the early morning was seeping into the room through the curtains. It was pale, cold. Lady Winnifred’s face was lined by deep shadows. Behind her, the door was open, Jocasta, the girls’ maid, was still deactivated, near the door. It must be really early. Rebecca’s eyebrows furrowed. This was unusual. Her mother had not woken her up since she was a little girl. Rebecca blinked again, focussing more on her expression: the grim face, the tight lips, curved downwards, wrinkles at the side of her mouth.

All of a sudden, Rebecca was awake. “What happened?”

The telegram had come from one of the partners of the family lawyer in New York – some man named Sitwell. From the village, it had been sent up to the estate way before the usual morning mail. The mistress of the Post Office had sent it straight away, ahead of the usual postal automata left the office, and Jimmy, the young lad who sometimes helped, had been pulled out of bed at four am. He had looked so dishevelled that Hogan, the butler, had scolded him thoroughly before sending the yellow envelope upstairs.

Rebecca, standing in the entrance hall of the manor, didn’t seem to catch up with its content.

> TO { Lady Wintar
> 
> Titanic lost at sea. His Lordship not among passenger list of survivors in the NYT. Provisional data only.

“Are Lady Martha and Lady Judith awake, Hogan?” her mother was saying, voice low and controlled.

She was made of steel. They were made of steel.

“Jocasta is waking them up, Your Ladyship,” the butler answered in hushed tones.

Winnifred nodded. “Make sure that Jocasta attends them before sending them down. Then programme her to wait in Lady Rebecca’s room.”

Rebecca tightened her hold on the paper until it crunched. She stopped and looked down again. The white lace of her dressing gown’s sleeves made her jump. Suddenly, a rumpled, dumbfounded twenty-year-old with her hair down and still in her nightclothes looked back from the lobby’s mirror. A few steps from her, Lady Winnifred looked like an older version of herself, from her auburn locks, abandoned on her shoulders, to the tip of her slippers. Rebecca couldn’t remember a time of her life in which she had seen Lady Winnifred Barnes in clothes inappropriate to the setting or the situation.

“Go make yourself presentable, Rebecca,” her mother said, softly. Her big, dark blue eyes – her brother’s eyes – were steady, dry.

Rebecca nodded. “Provisional data only,” she whispered.

“Provisional data only,” Winnifred laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezed it briefly.

Rebecca stepped on the staircase, climbing it slowly as if every step cost her an immense effort. It did. She raised her gaze to the family’s motto, carefully engraved along the elaborated woodwork: _Ex chalybe effecti_. We are made of steel.

Bucky used to make fun on it. When he was seven and Rebecca was five, he had covered his whole left arm with the pieces of an old armour found in the recesses of the house and made her believe his _real_ arm had been chopped off by their father and replaced with a metal one to honour their motto. She had cried and shrieked until Jocasta had come rushing, her security protocols activated. Thinking about what had happened at a later time in their life, she shivered.

Bucky.

She stopped and turned towards the end of the staircase. Winnifred was still standing in the middle of the lobby, gaze lost somewhere.

“Mama,” Rebecca called.

Winnifred looked back at her.

“Come upstairs,” Rebecca said; her fingers were still wrapped around the piece of paper on which the news of the airship’s wreck was scribbled by the steady hand of the Post Office mistress. “We will ring Howell and get ready for the day. The newspapers will be here soon. We can send a telegram to Aunt Mary in London. Then contact the Astors’ household and Leslie House. Also, we should contact that Sitwell, try to understand if Alexander is alright.”

“Naturally,” Winnifred agreed and tightened the belt of her nightgown before walking up the steps. “Murray will have to organise our travel to New York. We must leave immediately.”

_Ex chalybe effecti_. Rebecca thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Lords of Wintar do not exist, but you may have noticed that I built the prologue on the first minutes of the pilot of Downton Abbey.


	2. Take her to sea, Mr Murdoch (April 10-11th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The revel was glorious.  
> Bucky could see it from the window of the Daimler-Benz that Alexander had rented in London. There were so many people, it looked more like an anthill than a pier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand first real chapter! 
> 
> With incredible art by [Kay](https://call-me-kayyyyy.tumblr.com) \- isn't it beautiful? I am so overwhelmed.
> 
> Thank you again for organising this, mods of the Stucky Media Mini Bang!
> 
> Cameos in this chapter: Obadiah Stane, Maria Carbonell.

Day 1 – April 10th, 1912

The revel was glorious.

Bucky could see it from the window of the Daimler-Benz that Alexander had rented in London. There were so many people, it looked more like an anthill than a pier. People in cars like them, the shiny brass of their drivers glimmering in the sun, others in old fashioned carriages, the clockwork mechanisms of the wheels snapping and ticking, most of the newcomers on foot. Long queues waiting to be boarded, children running away from their screeching mothers, babies wailing to be fed, dogs barking, maybe in fear to be left behind.

Small green vans of a local company called Francis Ltd carried sacks of goods, delivering them right in the hands of animatronics, perfectly programmed to do their work. Sophisticated trunks drove around, surfing the crowd better than a town car ever could. And then there were the crewmembers, the latest models produced by Stark Industries, hastily checking passports and documents and sorting out people according to class. Third class passengers queued to be checked for lice and parasites; second class mostly brought with them their own luggage, some of them had an old model of Mark automaton, struggling with the heavy suitcases and satchels and children perched on their shoulders; first class women with voluminous hats lifted the hem of their skirts with badly concealed disgust for the water and the mud covering the ground, as they walked towards the gangways that led to the enormous airship. Bucky leaned against the window, trying to catch a glimpse of something more than the black side of the hull.

“Is there any way to get there faster, Rumlow?” Alexander Pierce asked, without raising his eyes from the document he was examining. Nothing was betraying his discontent, except for the way in which he flicked his wrist against the back of the driver seat. Bucky intercepted the look of the driver in the rear-view mirror and asked himself if automata could look annoyed because theirs certainly seemed so.

Brock Rumlow – a dark-haired man who had been officially Alexander’s valet for many years and unofficially his hired thug –, sitting beside the automaton, leaned outside the window. “It’s busy, sir,” he commented, curtly.

“There are many people,” Bucky stated the obvious, trying for a conciliatory tone.

“They should have provided a fast lane for first class,” Alexander shook his head, disappointed. “Stane will hear from me.”

Bucky turned back towards the window and rolled his eyes, index finger brushing against his lower lip. He didn’t mind waiting some more, lingering on British shores for a while. After all, he was supposed to spend the whole season in America, getting to know his future bride, courting her and meeting with American socialites, building up relations with the other side of the Atlantic. _You British people can be quite provincial, my dear boy_.

“Destination ahead in ten feet, sir,” said the metallic voice from the driver seat.

“About goddamn time,” Rumlow growled.

Bucky tried not to wince at the language and bit his tongue to avoid commenting. He may be provincial, but he was also polite enough to avoid certain words, especially in the company of gentlemen. He had expressed his dislike for Rumlow in the past, but Alexander had dismissed him with a soft chuckle and an invitation not to be ‘so English’.

He patiently waited for the automaton to get out of the car and open the door for him, instead of rushing outside, as Brock did, as if they had been stuck inside a metal container for fifteen hours instead of a little more than the forty minutes that separated Southampton station from the docks. He smiled at the blank face of the driver. He could swear that he had seen a glimpse of something in its eyes. He slipped a tip for the car company when a small compartment opened on the automaton’s chest.

“Now, now, James, pay attention not to squander so much,” Alexander scolded him from the other side of the car.

Bucky’s smile tightened. Rationally, he knew that Alexander meant well, he had been his father’s partner for years and years and it wasn’t his fault that Lord Wintar had not listened to his suggestions and concerns. Sometimes, though, Bucky just didn’t want to feel as if _he_ was responsible for every bad financial choice his father ever made.

“Mind the puddles, Alexander,” he answered curtly. “You don’t want to stain your Poiret suit.”

Alexander laughed, but it sounded hollow. “Don’t pout, my dear boy, it doesn’t suit you,” he winked and touched the hem of his bowler hat in salute, turning towards Rumlow, who was whispering something at his ear, probably regarding their luggage.

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Bucky turned towards the huge leviathan. The airship was enormous, immeasurably so. The slick back hull brushed the water just so, its huge lateral propellers – so tall they almost reached the top of the funnels – still and innocuous. Two levels of portholes cut the vertical upsurge; then, the decks climbed one over the other, like the most imposing staircase Bucky had ever seen. Finally, up above, the ruff-colored funnels stood against the sky like the pillars of a Greek temple, framed by bat-like wings, lifted high on their masts, already taut. It was breath-taking. Hurrying passengers and well-wishers were crowding the pier, the formers moving towards elevated bridges that allowed them to board the ship without mixing up with the mob. On the ground, a line of steerage passengers, all huddled in too stuffy coarse wool and tweed clothes, possibly the only traveling clothes they owned, stood amassed inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute.

“So, this is the airship they say is unsinkable,” he mumbled, contemplating. It indeed seemed to embody all the prowess and the power of the British Empire – its unmatched rulership over the skies. It was designed by an American, but alas. Nothing can be perfect.

“It _is_ unsinkable,” Rumlow said, petulantly.

“God himself couldn’t sink this airship,” Alexander commented, matter-of-factly, as if settling a quarrel between two kids. “Now, where is the personnel?”

Bucky breathed out, looking at him as he showed off his wealth tipping the auto-porter assigned to them with a sum of money that could feed a family for weeks. Bucky simply stood there, blinking in the unusual sun, taking in the spectacle in front of his eyes. He was going to cross the sea and leave his country behind. For a while at least.

He thought about his mother and his sisters, up in Macktyre Hall, partly unaware of the financial disaster their father’s death had caused them. They were suffocating in debt, barely managing to stay adrift. The reconstruction of the house, past, half-hidden debts that Bucky had discovered going through the papers provided by Alexander– or what was left of it… He had tried, poor Lord George, to keep everything together – the estate, the tenants – putting all their money in the wrong places, following a lifestyle that was bound to fail. Spectacularly so. The dowries of the girls were barely there anymore.

A few days after his father’s funeral – a funeral Bucky had not attended, unconscious in his bed – Alexander Pierce had come to him – he, who was the head of the household now, the heir and the provider – and had showed him the books, a grave expression on his face. He had revealed him what his father had done wrong, how disastrous their finances were going to be once the works of reconstruction started, how in trouble he was, and he had offered to make everything go away.

And Bucky had said yes. Because he had no idea how to deal with the estate, how to fix the debts and the bad investments, and a half-collapsed manor. Alexander, on the other side, had always been his father’s confidant, his partner on the other side of the Atlantic, who shared his investments in the railways – the only good bet his father ever made he had made, Alexander had revealed – and knew how that world worked. With his help, Bucky could ensure his sisters’ dowries and his mother’s wellbeing. And when Alexander had proposed that Bucky married his second daughter, so that their families could finally become one, well, it had seemed like a match made in heaven. He could save his family, his estate, everything. So here he was, on his way to America, ready to board the famous Titanic on her maiden voyage.

Bucky tried not to smile in awe when he saw the little army of auto-porters starting to organize the enormous pile of steamer trunks, suitcases, wooden crates and even a steel safe they were supposed to get inside the ship. Howard Stark really outdid himself. Everything in that airship looked so modern and shiny, everything else, even the most up-to-date of the first-class valets, looked old-fashioned. Alexander’s Mark VIII valet, a very snazzy animatronic, appeared out of thin air and started giving brisk, metallic orders to the cargo-handlers who had come running to help.

“James!” Alexander called, pointing to the bridges. “We’d better hurry. This way.”

Bucky nodded and followed him, trying hard to ignore Rumlow’s sharp comments towards the steerage passengers that surrounded them. Little children running around, parents shouting, grandmothers hugging goodbyes. Bucky’s thoughts went back to his sisters, their thin arms squeezing his waist, the cold hand of his mother caressing his cheek before he climbed inside the car. And then their faces transformed in those of angry peasants, sieging his home, shouting, pitchforks in their hands and fire in their eyes. And the explosion. He shook his head and inhaled deeply.

“You act as if you’re going to your execution, Barnes,” Brock whispered at his hear, motioning him forward through the gateway of the D-Deck doors.

Bucky shrugged. “I am at a loss of words for the grandeur,” he answered, his left hand curling around the banister of the gangway. It clinked.

Brock leaned forward, his breath hitting the back of Bucky’s neck. “Cheer up, James. Your… partner pulled every string he could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites. Only the best for his future son-in-law.”

An iron clench grabbed Bucky’s insides as he stepped over the threshold with a sense of overwhelming dread. Struggling with the guilt at the mere comparison between his privileged life and that of a prisoner, Bucky wondered if that was the feeling a man in chains would feel, walking towards his inevitable fate. He looked up at the giant shape of the airship looming over his head. _Ab chalybe inclusum_ , he thought.

*

A man, barely more than a boy, was running at breakneck speed towards the third-class gangway aft; his laughter and the shouts of encouragement coming from the crowd were muted by the screaming blast that came from the mighty triple steam horns of the Titanic funnels, bellowing their final departure warning. Families and friends left behind yelled at him as he bumped into them, jostling out of the path of a wagon drawn by old-school mechanical horses and loaded with a heavy cargo of Oxford Marmalade in wooden cases, ready to deliver the last batch for the Titanic’s Victualling Department. A pile of luggage almost dropped on his head as he weaved through a large group of White Star auto-porters. He finally burst out onto the pier and came to a dead stop staring at the seven stories of decks towering above the wharf. When he saw that the officer in charge of the ramp to the E-Deck was detaching it from the top of the gangway doors, he snapped himself out of his reverie.

“Wait!” he shouted.

The man was tall and broad-shouldered if a bit lanky, like someone who had hit a growth spurt too late and too fast. His golden fringe was excessively long and kept falling over a pair of baby blues that must have turned more than a few heads. His clothes looked rumpled from sleeping in them, the leather of his suspenders worn out and overused. A kit bag dangled from his shoulder.

“I’m a passenger!” he fumbled, jumping on the gateway and hurrying to get to the door.

The officer stopped and his metal hand shot up to gather the newcomer’s ticket. The young man cleared his throat and showed his ticket. The automaton inserted it in one of the compartments of his chest, then spoke.

“Mr. Thor Odinson. Steerage. Ticket purchased on: August. 18. 1911. Look in front of you, please.”

_Mr. Thor Odinson_ pressed his fringe over his forehead, half-covering his eyes, keeping his chin tucked in so that the facial recognition process would hopefully end up being at least questionable. Facial recognition was quite an inexact science, but this was Stark Tech, and of course it would have all the most modern solutions.

The compartment on the officer’s chest opened again with a puff of smoke. “There is a 45% match between provided picture and face,” he declared.

The man raised his eyebrows in spotting the photograph of the huge Swedish with the radiant smile and the mane of long, blond hair braided accurately, making a good show of itself on the ticket. Well, even Stark Tech sucked at something, clearly. Good to know.

“Considering the date of purchase, it is deemed,” a pause. “Acceptable.”

He exhaled.

“Have you been through the inspection queue, Mr…” another pause. “…Odinson?”

“Of course,” he lied, hoping from the bottom of his heart that the new Stark technology wasn’t so advanced that was able to smell lies. He was a terrible liar.

“Welcome to the Titanic, sir.”

_Not even Stark can give life to automata_ , thought the blond man whose name was indeed not Thor Odinson, but Steve Rogers _. Yet._

“Steve Rogers, you son of a– ”

“You don’t want to finish that, Dugan,” Steve crossed his arms, leaning against the threshold, but could hardly help the smile which threatened to split open his face.

“I don’t wanna finish tha– Have you heard that, Morita?”

“Loud and clear, Dum Dum,” shouted a man busy shoveling coal inside an enormous furnace.

Steve laughed, incapable of keeping a straight face. “You’re just jealous you suck at poker.”

The man in front of him, a burly Irish with a thick, red mustache and a totally out of place bowler hat, slapped him on his left arm with a wet towel. Steve jumped, bumping against a sack of… coal. Of course. There was only coal. It was a boiler room, after all.

“Rogers, you suck at poker,” the man called Morita was closer now. He was short, with a five o'clock stubble and a no-nonsense attitude.

Steve sat on the sack of coal. Five minutes in there and he was already completely covered in soot and grime anyway, sweat beading his forehead. It felt familiar. He looked around, at the men doing their job – he knew some of them, they had worked together now and then, in Belfast, mostly, then in Southampton. Stark liked to keep always the same team, from the engineers to the workers, from the beginning to the end of his crazy adventures. There was Timothy Dugan and Jim Morita, of course, and right down on the side Gabe Jones and that posh British lad, Falsworth, about whom every kind of story circulated. Where was Frenchie, though?

“I’ll let you know I am very good at poker,” he answered Morita, when he was close enough that Steve’s voice could be heard over the clanging of the machines. “You just happened to see me play only against that Russian lady. And she was out of this world.”

Morita raised his hands. “That she was.”

Dum Dum leaned on his shovel. “Wait, was that the redhead in Paris?” he asked, pointer and thumb scurrying towards his mustache to instinctively curl it.

“Out of your league, my friend,” Steve smirked.

“Out of the President’s league, that one,” Morita said wisely. “So, let me get this straight. You were supposed to board with us,” Steve nodded. “But as you were comin’ here you met a Swedish guy,” Steve nodded again. “And you played poker.”

Steve shrugged. “He said he never played before.”

Dum Dum and Morita exchanged a look.

“What the hell do they do in Sweden for fun?” Dugan asked, bewildered.

Steve raised his hands.

Morita waved them off. “Whatever. So, you play poker. And he sucks more than you because he never played poker.”

“I don’t…”

“And you cleaned him out?”

Steve pursed his lips and nodded. “In my defense, he was the one who decided to gamble it all.”

Morita exhaled from his nose. “God, I hate you.”

Steve burst into laughter.

Thor Odinson’s cabin was a modest cubical space, painted enamel white, with four bunks and exposed pipes overhead. Two bulky men, clearly connected in some capacity with the giant Steve had managed to outsmart at poker, looked at him in confusion. He abandoned his bag on the lower bunk, smiling nervously at the two Scandinavians who were now eyeing him suspiciously, muttering something in an incomprehensible language.

It was way better than the one he had boarded when he’d come to Europe.

Steve sat on the thin mattress and started taking out his meager possessions: a drawing pad, well-loved charcoals and pencils tied together with a red ribbon, a closed pocket watch. He was really going back to America for the first time since he’d left to bury his mother in her ancestral Ireland. Five years had passed since he had last seen the Statue of Liberty, and the smelly docks of Red Hook, Prospect Park and the swarming streets of Brooklyn Heights where he had spent his entire childhood.

When Sarah Rogers died, Steve had sailed to Europe to bring her body back to Galway and then… then he stayed. He worked at the docks in Belfast, learning to build airships just like this one, then he traveled to Liverpool and down to London and finally he headed to the continent. Paris welcomed him, with her bursting artistic life: Montmartre and the Quartier Latin and when he didn’t carry wooden boxes and did the heavy lifting at the local market, he spent time drawing people, capturing their souls with sanguine and pristine paper, learning how to paint, drinking with writers and poets and prostitutes. It had been exhilarating. But it was time to go back, now.

Back to Brooklyn. Maybe further West. He’d always wanted to see the Grand Canyon after all.

*

Day 2 – April 11th, 1912

“She’s the largest moving object ever made by the hand of a man in all history and our master airshipbuilder, Mr. Howard Stark here, designed her from the keel up.”

Bucky, who had wanted to stick a fork in his thigh for the last half an hour, finally raised his gaze with interest. The man at the far hand of the table, who had been silent up to that point, apparently busy transforming a napkin in an accurate rendition of the ship, smiled cockily, not even trying to appear modest, clearly pleased to be introduced into the conversation.

He was short, with dark brown hair and a snazzy mustache that would look very fashionable on a poet or a revolutionary, but that didn’t particularly scream 'reliable engineer'. Bucky had recognized him immediately – he was a fan, so to speak. Howard Stark was a self-made man. Everyone knew that. Nobody knew how he had become that. Some stories told that he had powerful friends among the mobsters; some other that he was the illegitimate child of some senator; others were ready to swear he had been raised by the Cherokees and his brains came from strange rituals. What Bucky had always found extremely fun was that Howard Stark neither confirmed nor denied anything. He couldn’t be older than forty, and yet he had made a fortune, giving a considerable boost to technological advancements and trading in firearms on the side, whilst selling his services in the US and in Europe. Because of that, he was one of the most popular socialites in the upper class – everyone wanted to have him at their parties – but Bucky was more interested in the genius part.

Howard Stark had revolutionized the transport industry, from cars to ships, from trains to airships. Before him, zeppelins, with their heavy, dangerous hydrogen-filled balloons, had been the only monsters to sail the skies. After him… well. He had been called by White Star Lines to design its new fleet of three majestic airships: the Olympic, the Titanic and the still work-in-progress Gigantic. The Olympic had been the first: enormous propellers, bat-like sails and the aerodynamic sleekness of a blade cutting the skies. The Titanic, though. Oh, she was marvelous. Bigger and faster and sturdier. No one could believe their eyes when she had flown from Belfast to Southampton.

Bucky had wanted to meet him since he was a boy.

“Now, now, Stane, don’t make me say that it was your idea to flatter you back,” Stark leaned conspiratorially towards Lady Maria Carbonell, a refined noblewoman from the South who had had the misfortune of sitting beside him, judging by the polite but fazed expression she sported. She was admirable, honestly, and not only because she had spent the beginning of her breakfast dealing with Howard Stark’s not so subtle _avances_ , but because she was famous first in London but also worldwide to be an innovator in couture styles – Bucky had actually blushed in seeing some of her lingerie displayed in their drawing room in the townhouse in St James’s Square when her staff had come to present the girls with her products.

Stane’s mustache quivered as he took the hit as graciously as possible. Clearly, his shady background didn’t protect him from a certain disdain coming from the upper-class present, but at the same time, the inconsiderate amount of money that Howard Stark dealt with prevented them from running their mouth too much. Bucky tried not to smile in his glass but didn’t do a great job of it.

Obadiah Stane, the managing director of the White Star Lines, wasn’t among his favorite people. An upper-middle-class man himself, with a background not unlike Howard Stark’s, was obsequious and servile to the powerful and haughty with those he had control over.

“Well, Howard, I did envision an airship so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged.”

Alexander, who was unsurprisingly personal friends with Stane, raised his glass in a cheer. “And here she is, willed into solid reality.”

Bucky busied himself lighting a cigarette to avoid joining the toast. Howard Stark’s dark brown eyes met his gaze from across the table and he winked behind his glass of champagne. Bucky breathed out the smoke from his nose, raising his eyebrows. He quite liked the guy, honestly. And he had half a thousand questions regarding the airship. He had met Leonard Peskett some years before, the engineer who had built the Mauretania, but the Titanic appeared to be more… everything. More technologically advanced, more modern, safer, stronger. Bucky wanted to ask about the bulkheads, the airtight doors, the granulated cork used for the interior ceilings to prevent condensation. He wanted to inquire about the distillery that could transform saltwater into drinkable one, he wanted to know about the steering engines, the Marconi Room and the range of the radiotelegraph broadcast radius which went above three hundred and fifty miles.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he barely noticed the waiter approaching.

“We’ll both have the lamb,” Alexander was saying. “Rare, with a little mint sauce.”

Bucky blinked and Alexander turned towards him. “You like lamb, don’t you, James?”

Bucky stared, unable to hide his blush for being handled in such a patronizing way. But Alexander didn’t do it in a malicious way, he was just… he was just overprotective. He felt he had to fill the void left by Bucky’s father, that was it. It was difficult for him to see Bucky as an equal, since a couple of years before he was just the teenage son of his partner.

“So, you gonna cut his meat for him too, there, Pierce?” Howard intervened, the corner of his lower lip curved upwards, his eyes observing their dynamic, inquiring.

Bucky set his jaw.

Alexander’s smile suddenly felt forced.

Lady Carbonell cleared her throat and intervened, cutting the tension. “Who came up with the name Titanic? You, Mr. Stark?”

Howard, ecstatic to be directly asked a question by the current focus of his romantic attention, beamed. “Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And thus stability, luxury and above all strength – you know,” he grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “Strength, _stark_.”

He looked very satisfied with his explanation, so satisfied that Bucky couldn’t hold his tongue. “Do you know of Dr. Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Stark.”

Lady Carbonell chocked on a breadstick, trying desperately not to burst into laughter. Howard, on the other side, didn’t mind one bit. A huge, amused smile opened on his face and his dark eyes twinkled with mirth. “Oh, this one is a pistol. A marksman’s shotgun. Just says one word but makes it count.”

The general laughter faded out in light chatter and Bucky stiffened instinctively when Alexander leaned towards him. “Hold your tongue and your wits, James. You are lucky Mr. Stark has a sense of humor.”

Bucky pushed his chair back, lips quirked upwards in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Excuse me,” he said, curtly but politely, before quickly moving away from the table. He felt queasy.

When he walked past Stark, the man reached out and grabbed his left wrist. Bucky froze on the spot. Stark smirked, turning his hand palm up. Bucky was wearing a white glove, but the thin, brass lines of his mechanic ligaments peeked between the hem of the glove and the circle of Stark’s fingers.

“Wakandian,” he said, almost reverently. “Been wanting to put my hands on one of these since forever.”

Bucky yanked his arm back. “Then you should have stayed in London,” he answered sharply.

Before passing through the huge French windows that led to the poop deck, he managed to hear Stane asking, contrived. “By the way, Freud, who is he? Is he a passenger?”


	3. Reflections (April 11th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He didn’t seem bored, or arrogantly upset by some menial misgiving from the crew of the ship, as it was usual with the rich passengers Steve had seen promenading on the upper deck all day; he only looked… sad. Lonely. Somber, like a Byronic hero – Steve thought – tall and handsome and dressed in dark colors, but passionate, full of crimson fire, the same red as those two apples on his cherubic cheeks, the same red as the cupid bow lips puckered in a frown.
> 
> He wanted to paint him black against every single shade of blue, like Caspar Friedrich’s _Wanderer_. Friedrich had had the tall peaks of Saxony and Bohemia, he would have the clouds and the blue sky and down, the deep, icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Charcoal was Steve’s favorite. Better than pencil, better than crayon, even better than sanguine. He liked the way in which dark lines appeared on the rough paper, as the person he was sketching slowly appeared from the mist. He liked the way in which the powder stained his fingers, leaving behind fragments of the soul of his model. Charcoal trapped something on the sheet and left something to the artist, reminding them what they had taken from the individual, an instant of life, forever trapped on paper. It was like shooting a gun – Steve thought – it took something from the target and left gunpowder on the shooter’s fingers, reminding them what they had done, the consequence of their actions.

The girl he was drawing was very pretty, with a stunning mane of wavy chestnut hair, sparkling golden in the sun; she had high cheekbones, long eyelashes, and a relaxed expression refining her features. She was wearing a tight red corset, a flowery blouse, and colorful skirts.

A gust of wind made her blink her eyes open and cling onto her tinkling scarves, wrapping them tightly around her upper body. Steve added a couple more shining trinkets to the hem of her shawl and smiled when a small child walked shily towards the girl, whispering something. She grinned broadly and nodded, probably giving her permission to play with the knick-knacks, since the child proceeded to climb the bench and started fidgeting quietly with the shiny coins.

Steve stopped sketching. Every time he started drawing something, something else, usually more beautiful, appeared before his eyes.

Alas, the hard existence of the artist.

He turned the page on his pad, preparing himself to start again, to capture the two girls – so different and yet so similar, bushy curls and chestnut locks, dark skin and fair skin, dark eyes and sky-colored irises. He ran a hand through his hair to keep his bangs from falling over his eyes and blinked quickly, looking back at the charming scene. But suddenly, something else attracted his attention. His eyes, glancing around the well deck, focused on a figure standing atop the first-class deck. Something had called his gaze there, like an inexplicable force, something he couldn’t explain. He stared, transfixed.

The young man was standing still, eyes lost to the horizon, straight shoulders wrapped up in a dark grey suit that was without the shadow of a doubt custom made. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and dark locks of hair kept twirling in the breeze, the only sign – together with the blush on his cheeks, probably caused by the same wind – that he was not completely put together. He didn’t seem bored, or arrogantly upset by some menial misgiving from the crew of the ship, as it was usual with the rich passengers Steve had seen promenading on the upper deck all day; he only looked… sad. Lonely. Somber, like a Byronic hero – Steve thought – tall and handsome and dressed in dark colors, but passionate, full of crimson fire, the same red as those two apples on his cherubic cheeks, the same red as the cupid bow lips puckered in a frown.

He wanted to paint him black against every single shade of blue, like Caspar Friedrich’s _Wanderer_. Friedrich had had the tall peaks of Saxony and Bohemia, he would have the clouds and the blue sky and down, the deep, icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He wanted to carve the brutal curves of the tempest, he wanted the sea to be angry, the waves to raise so high that they would manage to reach and crash violently against the hull of the Titanic, just to paint this man in the only way he deserved to be painted. With passion and wretchedness and helplessness. He was handsome and tragic, he was–

Suddenly, the image of his mother reading from an old and battered book came to his mind. She had loved poetry, especially Romantic poetry – Keats and Shelley and Byron. He remembered her reading out loud, while he was sick in bed, the words flowing easily, the liquids rolling on her tongue because of her musical accent. He imagined her, sitting beside the girl on the bench, a quirk on her lips, her bright blue eyes mischievously running from Steve to the man on the deck. He imagined her turning the page, clearing her throat, articulating the verses.

> _That man of loneliness and mystery, / Scarce seen to smile and seldom heard to sigh_.

He felt as if the man on the deck had hypnotized him. He looked as a second man approached him. He wasn’t alone anymore. The other man was slightly shorter, bulkier, with strong features and the flair of someone not used to be denied anything. He looked quite annoyed, but his bursting anger met only with a wall of ice. All red had gone away from Steve’s Byronic hero’s cheeks and his eyes were impassive. The frown was even more pronounced. The second man grabbed him by his elbow and he barely flinched. Steve only just noticed that he was on his feet, ready to spring in action. But before he could do anything to regret, the man in the grey suit pronounced one single order.

_Let go_.

Steve mouthed it with him, and as if by magic, the bulkier man jerked away, growling something definitely distasteful. Nevertheless, when his companion stormed away, he followed, after breathing out a deep sigh.

Steve kept staring at the vacant space.

“Here you are.”

Bucky closed the door behind him, feeling like a five-year-old brought back to mother grabbed by the ear by a strict nanny. Rumlow strolled like a proud, oversized peacock to a nearby armchair and sad down like he owned the place.

“I wish I didn’t have to send Brock to retrieve you like a grumpy child, James,” Alexander went on, shaking his head in disappointment.

Bucky felt ashamed. “I needed some air,” he said, tersely, walking towards the table near the door and pouring himself a generous glass of scotch. It was just before lunchtime, that was a new low.

“You stormed out like a little boy after being rude to Mr. Stark. That’s not the kind of behavior you expect from a Lord.”

Bucky closed his eyes for a second, trying to focus on the feeling of the glass underneath his fingers. “I don’t think he minded,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What was that? Speak clearly, boy.”

Bucky turned on his heels, facing him. “I don’t think he minded,” he repeated, more clearly. “He was amused, so no harm done.”

“I mind,” Alexander answered, caustic. “And your father would mind and your dear mother. You are under my care, here, and– ”

“I’m an adult,” Bucky interrupted and immediately regretted it. He sounded exactly the opposite. “I’m an adult,” he repeated because at that point he had made his bed and had to lie in it. “I am not under your care. I am going to be your son-in-law and I am going to be treated like an equal.”

Alexander sighed and his expression lost part of its severity. “James, I only speak in your interest,” he walked to him and took the glass from his hands before he could drink it. “Your father’s sudden departure,” his eyes lingered uneasily on Bucky’s covered arm. “And your condition…” Bucky blushed violently. “I want to be a guide, for you, a mentor to steer you in the storm. Your poor father didn’t have time to ease you into this role. And as unfit I am for the role – I am no nobleman, mind you – I only want to do my best for you and your family.”

Bucky felt all the tension drain from his body. Alexander was right, he was just trying to help and childish outburst of rage weren’t going to help anybody. It wasn’t his fault if Bucky’s father had died and it wasn’t his fault if Bucky had become Lord of Wintar at twenty years old and it wasn’t his fault if he had to manage a crumbling empire and it wasn’t his fault if Bucky wasn’t cut for it.

“I apologize,” Bucky said, dutifully.

Alexander smiled indulgently and patted his shoulder. “Apologies accepted. You don’t have to worry about a thing. I have everything under control. Now, go and change, dear boy, put on that green vest I bought you in Liverpool, will you? There are some people we need to meet this afternoon. You’ll just have to follow my lead. And smile.”

Bucky nodded, absent-mindedly and walked towards his own room, passing through Alexander’s and keeping his eyes in front of him. He had been scolded like a child and in front of that brute Alexander kept around like a trained beast. He felt drained, and it wasn’t even a day since they left.

_Go and change._

_Follow my lead._

_Smile._

He had to do this for months, for the rest of his life.

He had to stand on the side, learn from Alexander, until one day he could be enough to do his part.

Somehow, when he had been younger, all of it seemed so far along the way he had never spent time thinking about it. His father was the Lord and yes, as his firstborn and heir he was supposed to behave in a certain way, he was supposed to learn about finance and the estate and everything but… but at the same time Lord Wintar had always been indulgent with his children, he loved them too much to put them under pressure. Once, when they had been around twelve or thirteen, Bucky and Rebecca had hidden inside their parents closet, planning a prank on them – they were going to jump out and scare them – and they had overheard their mother expressing a certain degree of concern – why wasn’t Bucky in military school yet? Why didn’t the girls have that famous Italian scholar as a tutor yet? When was George planning to start inviting this or that Lord so that Bucky and the girls could meet other children of royalty just like them? She was a practical woman, Lady Winnifred and Bucky understood her anxieties now. At the time, George had dismissed them. _Let the children be children_ , he had said. Now, twenty-one and without a clue, Bucky wished his father had listened to her.

Howard Stark was a difficult man to get a hold of on the Titanic. He was a socialite and every single passenger wanted to meet him, to talk to him, to spend even five minutes in his presence in the hope to be remembered.

That was why, at first, Bucky was really surprised when, after dinner that first night, Howard Stark invited him to have a cigar in his office. Then, he thought about his hand around his metal wrist and his awestruck expression in front of Wakandan technology and he realized there was an agenda behind his kindness. Nevertheless, he accepted.

They walked along a corridor carpeted in burgundy red, Stark happily jabbering on about nonsensical stuff. When he approached the door, it opened from the inside as if by magic. Bucky stepped in, bewildered, and then did a double-take when the humanoid face of an android welcomed him with a quiet smile.

Bucky looked at it, speechless. It looked so real it was uncanny. Bucky knew Stark’s automata were way more advanced than anything else you could find around, but his personal automaton, well, it was something else. It had nothing of the awkward jerky motions of normal automata – even the best ones – and it wasn’t expressionless. He looked more similar to Macktyre Hall’s butler with its polite no-nonsense attitude than a Mark VII model.

“Say ‘hello’ to Jarvis,” Stark chirped. “Hello Jarvis, can you make us a coupla whisky cocktail?”

“Right away, Mr. Stark,” the automaton – Jarvis, apparently – answered politely, with a thick British accent that made Bucky feel self-conscious.

“Um, hello Jarvis,” he said, somehow clumsily.

“Good evening, Lord Wintar,” Jarvis answered, all gracious, as he moved in a scarily natural way towards the decanter.

Bucky couldn’t stop looking at it. “How…?”

Stark, a harmful of blueprints in his arms, looked from one to the other. “Oh, I keep the best for myself,” he answered, mysteriously, dumping the load on a chair and then motioning towards the two armchairs.

Once he snapped out of his stupor, Bucky allowed himself some time to look around. Stark’s office was artfully decorated – paintings and busts and fresh flowers everywhere. Hardwood covered the walls where huge windows left space for a more solid structure and the upholstery of the sofas and armchairs shone with silk and golden decorations. He definitely kept the best for himself.

Bucky sat, still looking around, and smiled cordially when Jarvis handed him the glass.

“So, Lord Wintar,” Howard’s dark eyes glimmered with mischief. “I always thought lords were supposed to be old and stuffy and slightly slimy like that Astor with the child-bride,” he waved his arm and the whisky sloshed inside his tall glass. “I was really surprised when they introduced you, you look out of the crib, kid.”

“Are we here for my arm?” Bucky asked, point-blank, because it had been a long day, started in the worst way possible, and he had no intention of beating around the bush.

Stark’s smile widened. “You would make an excellent marksman.”

“I will let my CO know,” Bucky deadpanned.

Howard snapped his fingers and Jarvis appeared out of thin air, presenting them a wide variety of cigars literally on a silver platter. Stark chose one randomly and fished an oddly-shaped lighter from his pocket. Bucky shook his head.

“Let’s play a game,” Howard said, taking in a mouthful of smoke and looking too smug when he managed to create a perfect circle. “You ask me something you want to know, I ask you something I want to know.”

Bucky took a sip of the strange concoction the android had served him and let it slosh inside his mouth as he considered Stark’s proposal. He swiveled his wrist and the plates there recalibrated with a soft whirring. Stark looked like a child at Christmas, waiting to open a mountain of presents.

Truth was, despite having an outstanding piece of technology wired to his brain, Bucky didn’t feel comfortable with his metal arm. People looked at him weirdly when they found out about it – in the best-case scenario, with pity, worst case, with open disgust. Metal limbs were for the poor – for people who lost pieces working in factories, where huge blades snapped left and right to cut iron and steel – for the incompletes, for the half-human. Nobles did not have metal limbs, not even state-of-the-art ones, not even made with the most mysterious and rare metal on Earth, not even if they didn’t have a furnace mounted on their back to make it work. So no, Bucky didn’t like to parade it around, didn’t like people to know and tried to look at it as seldom as possible. And despite his fascination with engineering and technology he had refused to know more than necessary.

“What if I do not know the answer to your questions?”

Stark shrugged. “You get a question anyway. But,” he smirked. “You drink.”

Bucky fought valiantly against his lips curling up in amusement but failed. “We have a deal.”

“You got the arm from Wakandan scientists in London?”

Bucky nodded. “Yes, but you already knew it.”

“Nevermind, your turn.”

“Did you really have an affair with Lily Elsie last year?”

Stark wiggled his eyebrows. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

Bucky snickered. “Come on, Stark. Answer or drink.”

Howard raised his glass and then chugged half of it in spite. “I am a gentleman, Barnes.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Bucky commented when he wiped his mouth on his extremely expensive brocade sleeve.

“What’s the name of the engineer who designed your arm?”

“Shuri, daughter of T’Chaka.”

Stark looked ecstatic. “A woman?”

Bucky crossed his legs. “That’s two questions. How did you manage to forfeit balloons?”

“With a reactor.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows.

“Which kind of reactor is inside your arm?”

“No reactor,” Bucky answered. “It connects to my brain.”

A spark of excitement illuminated Stark’s eyes and he opened his mouth to press Bucky for more information, but he raised a finger. “What factors influence the maximum speed of this airship?”

“In the simplest terms, the maximum speed of this airship occurs when the maximum thrust generated by its engines is equal to the drag it experiences while being pushed through the air at that speed,” Howard said, already eyeing a stack of pristine papers nearby.

“I didn’t ask for simple.”

Howard smirked.

They went on and on like that, one question each and soon they were surrounded by papers and glasses of strange _cocktails_ Bucky had never heard about and his collar was unbuttoned and his shirt sleeves pulled up to his elbows. And Bucky loved this, he loved talking about machinery and hearing Howard ranting about cogs and engines and odd chemical components that kept exploding.

“…As others have pointed out, speed does not increase in proportion to thrust, but increased thrust will result in an increase a bit larger than the square root of the thrust ratios due to the Reynolds number effect…”

“…The pressure increases, the temperature increases as well. At a point in hypersonic flight, the shockwave detaches completely from the airframe and forms ahead, leaving the airframe engulfed in a pressurized bubble where the friction of pressurized air flowing on the surface creates heat…”

“…My ad-hoc tongue-in-check proposition of vacuum airship – vacship? Write that down Jarvis – would be most efficient per unit of volume, but in a non-fantasy world, next to impossible to construct.”

“Oh, come on Stark, you have made a ship fly without balloons, you _create_ fantasy worlds,” Bucky blurted, letting out that enthusiastic boy that had read every single one of Stark’s articles and books.

“Flattery will take you places, Barnes,” he said, smug, taking a sip from a caramel-colored concoction.

Bucky rolled his eyes and finally accepted the cigar from a quite persistent Jarvis. He lit it absent-mindedly and took in a mouthful of smoke. God, they were foul, he thought, leaning back against the armchair, his eyes closing. He was tired, but he felt dizzy with the excitement of putting into use his brain. It wasn’t like this with economics and finance – he never had the head for that, he never had the wits. He was a practical guy, too concrete for the aristocracy. Give him an engine, he could take it apart in minutes – when he was home from boarding school, he spent too much time in the garage, asking the driver to teach him how to drive, to show him how the automobile worked. He liked to visit tenants, to check on their tractors and ploughs. It was another thing that Lord George had looked at with indulgence.

“Places like Stark Industries.”

Bucky blinked his eyes open. “Pardon me?”

Stark opened his arms in an inviting gesture. “I got more ideas from you while getting drunk on watered drinks than from any of the meetings with my management boards. Come work for me.”

Bucky’s jaw dropped.

Everything in those four words sounded preposterous.

Lords did not _work_. They administrated. They acted like chiefs. They… ruled. That was his job. That was his birthright. His life had been planned since the day he was born: inherit the estate, get married, have heirs, preserve the estate and your good name for your successors. That was what he was supposed to do, that was how his life was supposed to go.

“Why that expression?”

Bucky blinked and opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, then open it again. “I already have a job,” he said, and his voice didn’t sound his at all.

“Do you? Riding horses and hunting foxes?” Howard smirked.

It stung. It shouldn’t have. Stark was American and Americans could not understand what history meant. Heirlooms. Inheriting something older than dynasties, older than religions, something passed down generation to generation since the Dark Ages. Something carefully preserved through civil wars and revolutions and succession problems.

“I am the Lord of Wintar. I have an estate to administrate.”

Stark took the cigar from Bucky’s hand, where it was wasting away, forgotten. He started smoking, apparently not in a rush to answer.

“You have sisters, I am sure one of them has a mind for it. Women are formidable like that.”

“My sisters cannot inherit. I am the heir. Macktyre Hall is my birthright.”

Stark hummed something, then started going through the papers they had covered with formulas and sums. “Barnes, you have talent,” he pushed the blueprint of a flying… something Bucky had heavily modified not even half an hour before. “You didn’t even study for this. It just comes to you.”

Bucky shook his head. “It’s a divertissement. Something I do to relax.”

Howard stared blankly at him.

Bucky had a duty. To his family. To his name.

“Listen,” Bucky got up and fixed his sleeve over his metal arm, suddenly extremely conscious of its unnatural shape. “I didn’t come here for a job interview. It was a game, I had fun. I am sorry, Mr. Stark, I am not what you are looking for. I mean no disrespect, I am indeed flattered. I am fascinated by your work, I truly am,” he slipped his gloves on. “But I am a peer of the realm. I have a business, investments to keep my estate afloat. It is a difficult matter nowadays.”

Howard's dark eyes were unreadable. “With Alexander Pierce?”

Bucky stilled, fingers lingering on his cufflinks. “Mr. Pierce was my father’s business partner,” he answered, diplomatically. He didn’t know if Stark knew Alexander personally and it seemed as if Alexander wanted to make a good impression on Stark. Or, better, on Stark’s money. “I owe him the instruments to navigate muddy waters.”

Stark took in a mouthful of smoke, then produced a series of concentric rings. He wiggled his eyebrows when Bucky stared blankly at him, unimpressed. “Very well, my friend. My door is always open. It has been a pleasure.”

The dismissal stung even more than the uncaring way in which Stark had undermined his role. He felt forced out, even if he had been the one to get up in the first place. He nodded and walked to the door, ignoring Jarvis’ smooth moves to anticipate him. He lowered the handle and crossed the threshold.

“Lord Wintar,” Stark called and Bucky stopped. “Pay attention to the quicksand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote Steve remembers is from Lord Byron's _The Corsair_ (1.8).
> 
> Lily Elsie was a popular English actress and singer during the Edwardian era, best known for her starring role in the hit London premiere of Franz Lehár's operetta _The Merry Widow_.


	4. That man of loneliness and mystery (April 12th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something clicked in his metal arm. Wasn’t pain something Bucky was familiar with? He took in a deep breath, then exhaled. He looked down, then back up turning slightly towards the blond man still casually leaning against the gunwale. Slowly, he started feeling as if he was melting back inside his own body.  
> “Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don't see a choice.”  
> He had a lovely smile, Bucky thought, totally missing the point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here's the next chapter :D  
> I will post two more times today. 
> 
> Aaaand... they meet. 
> 
> NB: Watch out for Suicidal Thoughts, as per canon. Take care.
> 
> Cameo: Col. Phillips.

Day 3 – April 12th, 1912

The sea was as dark as ink spilled on a white sheet. Bucky was looking at it, completely transfixed, his hands holding onto the railing. Speaking of looking into the abyss. Nietzsche was not wrong.

And yet.

He tilted his head and the rope of the flagpole brushed against his cheek. He shivered.

And yet it was not like black ink on a white sheet, it was more like… It was deeper. Darker. Like the void, like the space among the stars.

Somewhere, far away, a ship. They were mostly used as cargo nowadays. There was a white slipstream of foam, the bubbling mess caused by powerful propellers, hidden underneath the water. It was white ink on a black sheet. How strange. He tried to picture them, huge monsters, shaped like screws, tearing apart the water with each turn. They moved something underneath, cutting the water, leafing through it thanks to the effort of the furnaces. He wondered how many there were, how many a cargo ship, down on the ocean, needed. Eight? Ten?

The Titanic, the fabulous airship they were traveling on, had twenty-nine. Twenty-nine. It was a huge number. That was what Stark had told him. There was a reactor. But the airship needed coal. And if he closed his eyes, if he concentrated in the silence of the stern deck, deserted at that time of the night, he could see it, so close, so real, the turmoil caused by that fire, the yells of the workers shoveling coal inside the gaping maws, the screeches of the pipes.

He looked down again, and the lonely cargo ship was still there, its slipstream drooling on the sea, the salty blood left back from the passage of the turbines, the pain of the water, spitting out angry foam like a rabid dog, staining the ocean of ink.

Bucky wondered if someone could see that same foam at his own mouth. That same pain. It was like being butchered, every day, the anxious preoccupation that consumed him – the money, the estate, the girls – and his arm, that dull, constant… He rolled his shoulder, right hand pressing against the juncture at his collarbone. He felt stuck. _Pay attention to the quicksand_. Alexander was his friend. He was his family’s friend. He was working to help them. He had everything under control. _Go and change. Put the green vest on. Smile._ Bucky… Bucky was a nuisance. His hands curled more tightly against the railing, the knuckles of his flesh hand white.

It was beautiful and heart-wrenching, he thought, how the waves throbbed, curved, enlightened by the electric rays coming from the ship, coming from the Titanic itself, despite it being a thousand feet or so above it.

 _Mesmerizing_ , Bucky thought, _And what would happen if I_ …

Breath hitched in his throat and before he realized what he was doing he was climbing on the railing, shakily setting himself astride the immaculate metal. It was so close, he thought, moving methodically to turn his body, the heels of his shiny shoes finding support on the white-painted gunwale. He looked down and, oh, how close and how far it looked, the hidden turmoil, the churning foam, the ghostly wake, trailing towards the horizon.

What would it feel like? He wondered. Falling down, down, down. Forgetting everything: his duties, his burdens, his suffocating, already programmed life. He saw it so clearly, every single day as if he had already lived it. An endless parade of parties and cotillons, yachts and polo matches, smiling at a woman he didn’t love, hiding every feeling, every emotion, attending business meetings, Alexander’s indulgent hand on his shoulder, drinking bourbon and smoking smelly cigars. He had already lived every day of his life, everything from the beginning to the end, and it was miserable. And it wasn’t even… it wasn’t as if he was _needed_ for it. Alexander was able to take care of everything. It wasn’t as if Bucky was an important piece on the chessboard. _Put on the green vest. Smile_. Why living that life, then? Why going through all of that when he could be swallowed by the turmoil of the Ocean, like Sappho, like Antinous, like Percy Bysshe Shelley?

“Don’t do it.”

Bucky almost let go in surprise. He turned back with icy calm. There was a man behind him. The bulb mounted halfway on the flagpole illuminated him fully. He was tall, broad-shouldered, blond hair pushed back by the wind. He looked serious, determined.

He raised his right arm, walking towards Bucky, trying hard to look casual.

Bucky wanted to smile.

“Come on,” he said, waving vaguely. “Just give me your hand, I’ll pull you back over.”

“No,” Bucky heard himself say, weirdly calm as if he wasn’t dangling from a gunwale a thousand feet over the Atlantic Ocean. “If you come closer, I’ll let go.”

Wasn’t it interesting? Saying it out loud.

The blond man… the blond man took a shot from a cigarette. Bucky blinked. It was all very surreal. He openly defied Bucky’s order and stepped forward, pointing at the cheap-looking butt and then overboard. He threw it away, then sunk his hands in his pockets.

“If you really wanted to, you would have done it already,” he said, shrugging.

Bucky opened his mouth, then closed it. Well, the reasoning was sound. Did he want to? For real? Well, why not, right? It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t. He knew everything about his own life. From day one to the last one. _Let’s just get over it_.

“I suggest you step back,” he said, as politely as a man perched on a white painted railing, a thousand feet above becoming a pudding could. “Go back to your own devices.”

“I can’t,” the blond man said, staring stubbornly at him. “I’m involved now,” he had a deep frown between his eyebrows, his jaw set. “You let go and I’m gonna have to jump in there after you.”

Bucky stared back. Apparently, there were two crazy people in the same place at the same time, that night, on the stern of the mighty Titanic.

“It would hurt,” the blond man conceded, with a kind of ‘what can you do’ expression on his remarkably regular features. “I’m not saying it wouldn’t. To be honest, I am a lot more concerned about…”

_My sisters. My mother. My family._

“…the water being so cold.”

Oh. Well, who would have thought about that? Also, Bucky highly doubted that the water could be a problem after precipitating for a thousand feet. The effect would be the same as crashing against a steel wall.

“How cold?” he heard himself saying.

It was so odd, it was like everything was happening to someone else.

The blond guy shrugged again. “Freezing. Maybe a coupla degrees over.”

He had a weird accent. American, of course. No British person would even fathom discussing life and death with someone who was seemingly going to jump from the most famous airship of the world on her maiden voyage.

“You ever, ah, you ever been to New York?” he went on, conversationally, leaning against the railing at a reasonable distance.

“I am afraid I have never had the pleasure,” Bucky said, calmly.

“We have some of the coldest winters around,” the blond man – the New Yorker – said, fidgeting with his fingers. He had long fingers, like those of a pianist, but strong, with short nails, as if he was used to working hard. Bucky knew that his flesh hand was soft at the touch, unscathed, and he could feel his palm starting to hurt in the effort of keeping himself up. He took in his appearance, his second-hand trousers, his threadbare shirt, a jacket too battered to be useful against the cold weather. He had seen people like this before. He had seen them in London, in the slums and in Liverpool, near the docks and in his land, charging towards his home. Suddenly, the man’s hands were holding a bomb and Bucky’s head was spinning. He closed his eyes, fingers clenching. He was not at home anymore and this man was not amongst those famished, desperate workers who had killed his father.

“I grew up there. In Brooklyn,” he was saying, oblivious to Bucky’s inner turmoil.

Brooklyn. Yes. Something else to concentrate on. Bucky had no idea what Brooklyn looked like. He tried to picture it in his mind, something similar to Liverpool, with taller, newer buildings, maybe, red bricks, the screeching of seagulls and children running around. He tried to imagine the blond man working with his hands, lifting heavy loads, tying mariner’s knots.

“When a was a kid,” he went on. “I was a scrawny thing, always ill.”

Somehow, Bucky doubted it.

“I used to sell newspapers near the docks in Red Hook. I used to do that before going to school, my ma didn’t know it, she didn’t want me to do anything that would put my health at risk, but I did it anyway, to slip some more coin in her purse when she looked away,” he was smiling, but there was melancholy in his words and Bucky knew she was dead. Maybe it was a sort of orphan sixth sense.

“So, one of those mornings,” he went on. “I was trying to sell to a very respectable group of hookers. Been knowing them since I was a toddler.”

Bucky felt a blush spreading from his neck to his cheeks.

“And this group of older kids – they must have been thirteen or fourteen – they started buzzing around, saying things a proper man like you shouldn’t hear, and well…” he hooked a finger to the hem of his shirt and pulled a bit. “I jumped them, all eighty pounds of nothing I was.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows in admiration. “How many of them were there?”

The blond man’s smile widened, but he covered his mouth with his hand to hide it. “Five.”

Bucky whistled softly and he chuckled.

“I ended up in the Upper Bay. ‘t was January. I'm tellin' ya, water that cold... like right down there... it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing all over your body. You can't breathe, you can't think... least not about anything but the pain.”

Something clicked in his metal arm. Wasn’t pain something Bucky was familiar with? He took in a deep breath, then exhaled. He looked down, then back up turning slightly towards the blond man still casually leaning against the gunwale. Slowly, he started feeling as if he was melting back inside his own body.

“Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don't see a choice.”

He had a lovely smile, Bucky thought, totally missing the point. He raised only the right corner of his full lips, unsure.

“I guess I'm kinda hoping you'll come back over the rail and get me off the hook here,” he added, as an afterthought and for the second time that night, Bucky felt the sudden urge to smile back.

“You are crazy,” he declared, with a certain degree of admiration.

The blond man sighed, and his head fell forward, chin almost touching his chest. “That's what everybody says. But with all due respect, sir, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship here.”

Bucky wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh. And how long had it been since the last time he had wanted so badly to just burst into laughter until he couldn’t breathe? He felt slightly hysterical. He was holding onto the railing of the stern of the Titanic, a thousand feet from his death and a steerage passenger was trying to save his life. How did that happen?

He blinked and peeked from over his shoulder and the blond man was incredibly close now. Bucky had no idea when he had moved. He looked down and his right hand was there, palm up. Below it, the black and white nothingness of the Atlantic. _Water that cold… hits you like a thousand knives_. Bucky unfastened the fingers of his flesh hand from the gunwale one by one; they were prickling, and he felt as if some kind of powder was lingering on his skin. _Salt_ , he thought, with a certain degree of bewilderment.

Before he could properly process what was happening, his palm was sliding against the man’s. His firm, callused fingers grasped at Bucky’s hand immediately, as if he wanted to be sure that he would not yank it back. Bucky turned around, shifting the footing to face the airship. Suddenly, the realness of the situation came crashing on him and his heartbeat accelerated, adrenaline spiked up to his brain and suddenly he felt woozy, overcome by vertigo. Sensing it, the blond man tightened his hold at the point that his skin became even whiter where his fingertips were pressing.

Finally, Bucky gathered enough courage to look up. The first thing that he noticed was that there was a slight flaw in the man’s perfect features: his nose was crooked as if it had been broken at least once. Bucky felt the corner of his lips turn up.

“Hello,” said the man.

And Bucky completely cracked up, laughing wildly, unable to stop until tears formed in his eyes. He bent forward, holding onto the railing for dear life and the man adjusted his grip, small huffs of incredulous laughter coming out from his ungodly broad chest.

“Steve Rogers,” he finally said, when Bucky managed to compose himself and their eyes met again.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rogers,” Bucky said, politely. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

Steve Rogers’ right hand grasped Bucky’s elbow to stabilize him as he started to climb the railing and he looked up at him through blond locks. “I’ll have to get you to write that down.”

Bucky cracked up again and as he was trying to catch his breath, a powerful gust of wind hit them. Bucky wobbled and when his shiny shoe tried to find footing on the rail, it slipped on the salt-covered, moist metal. He plunged, a shout of terror wrenched out of his chest as he slammed hard against the side of the ship, right where the golden letters spelling Titanic adorned its elegant hull. He looked up, his neck snapping back, and Steve Rogers was holding onto his hand with both his, grasping his wrist so tightly it would most certainly bruise – well, if Bucky didn’t plummet to his death before, of course.

“I’ve got you!” Steve gasped, face scrunched in the effort. “Come on!”

Another gust of wind and Bucky thrashed against the side once more, groaning in pain, his left hand blindly trying to get a hold of the deck, the lower rail, anything. The damp metal and the fabric of his glove betrayed him, the silk slipping and tearing; he was unable to get a decent grasp at the ship. Steve grunted in the effort to support Bucky’s dead weight, his ribs pressing against the railing. _It must be cutting his breath_ , Bucky thought, irrationally.

“Listen to me,” he panted. “I won’t let go.”

Steve’s eyes were wide, terrified, but so, so determined, the blue of his irises so dark in the night and Bucky Barnes didn’t want to die.

“Now, pull yourself up.”

Bucky flailed and hit the hull again, his smooth evening jacked tearing and ripping. He shook his left hand, almost roaring in frustration as he tried to get rid of his glove and finally, finally, he succeeded. His metal hand glimmered in the moonlight and with a superhuman effort he managed to grab the bottom of the flagpole and then the rope, which was definitely less slippery, and suddenly Steve’s arms were sliding underneath his armpits, clutching at his shoulder blades, at his neck, tangling in his hair, pressing their chests one against the other with the railing in the middle, taking Bucky’s breath away. Bucky didn’t have time to realize that Steve had _seen_ it – the prosthetic, the fake arm, that strange appendix he wasn’t used to, not even after a year. Finally, his feet found the deck, his hands holding onto Steve’s elbows, feeling the rough wool of his jacket underneath his fingertips, clenching hard against his muscles. He raised his chin and…

“What’s all this?”

Bucky blinked and suddenly a different set of hands was getting him over the railing and on the safety of the deck. He collapsed on a heap of rope, chest going up and down irregularly. He blinked slowly, head buzzing, the tips of his fingers tingling. Two seamen, he slowly realized. He could see their dark shoes, the hem of their carefully cut uniforms. They were saying things. To him, to Steve Rogers, who was fiercely answering back, defending himself.

_Defending himself._

Bucky blinked again and tried to take a deep breath. _It wasn’t him_ , he wanted to say. _He’s not the one who… with the bomb and…_ Bucky choked on his own breath. He was not one of them. He was… yes, a worker, worker’s hands but he didn’t…

“Wait,” he managed to croak weakly, when two of the seamen grabbed Steve by his arms, keeping him from struggling. Which he was trying hard to do, in a very dedicated way.

“Don’t worry, sir,” the chubby face of one of the seamen – he looked like some sort of officer, but Bucky didn’t know the navy well enough to recognize the rank – appeared like a full moon in front of him. He was sweaty and trying desperately to project an aura of competence. “We’ll fetch the Master-at-arms. Everything will be settled.”

Bucky blinked again. “No, wait,” he tried, but two seamen were already dragging a very upset six-feet-two American towards the covered part of the upper deck.

When Bucky managed to go back to a decent state, he realized he was sitting on a bench with a blanket around his shoulders and Colonel Chester Phillips was offering him his brandy snifter. He shook his head, then thought better of it and grabbed the flask, chugging down a long sip.

“This is completely unacceptable,” Alexander was saying. “This is an attempt to rob and eliminate a peer of the realm. And with his lordship’s past…”

Bucky groaned. Alexander spared him a quick look.

“That’s not what happened,” Steve growled and even in his half-hazed state, Bucky was ready to bet it wasn’t the first time he pronounced the same sentence.

“Wasn’t it? You were throwing his lordship outboard after taking his pocket watch.”

Bucky blinked and lowered his gaze and noticed that the watch was noticeably missing.

“Listen, Sherlock,” Steve’s nostrils were flaring. “I did not take the damn watch and I surely wasn’t throwing _his lordship_ anywhere,” he hesitated and looked at Bucky as begging him to say something. “Tell him!”

Bucky cleared his throat and took another sip of brandy for good measure.

“It was an accident,” he finally managed to say. Eloquence be damned.

“Accident?” Alexander repeated, raising one single eyebrow. “Where is the watch, then?”

“Not on me, since you haven’t found it after searching me, did you?” Steve shot back, struggling against the bulky man – the Master-at-arms, apparently – who was snapping handcuffs to his wrists.

“It was an accident,” Bucky repeated, more steadily. “I was leaning over to, uh, see the propellers. You know how I am with engineering,” he ran a hand through his hair. “I must have clasped my pocket watch wrong and it fell over when I leaned in. I reached out to catch it and I would have gone overboard if…” he raised his gaze and met Steve’s quite puzzled expression. “If Mr. Rogers here had not saved me,” he added. “And almost went over himself,” he added, to be more convincing. Steve was just staring, looking as if someone had just hit him on the head with a blunt object.

Silence fell on the small group. Bucky was quite good with lies, normally. He had been lying about the financial situation of the family for more than a year after all, on the advice of Alexander, and even if this particular lie was not overly elaborated nor unbelievable, he felt as if every single person on that deck had not believed a syllable of what he’d just said.

The Master-at-arms finally broke the awkward moment. He unnecessarily shook Steve by his arm, which earned him a very rebellious look, and asked. “Was that the way of it?”

After an instant as long as a century, Steve nodded slowly, blue eyes not leaving Bucky’s pleading ones for a second. Bucky sighed in relief. He really didn’t want Alexander Pierce, Colonel Chester Phillips and the still unnamed Master-at-arms to know what had happened on that gunwale. He wasn’t sure himself about what had happened on that gunwale.

“Well,” said Phillips gruffly, motioning Bucky to give back his flask. Bucky complied, with a certain degree of reticence. It was good brandy. “The boy’s a hero then,” he patted Steve on a shoulder which only gained him a glare. “Good for you, son. Uncuff him.”

The Master-at-arms obliged, clearly disappointed. Steve massaged his wrists, his eyes, bright blue and inquisitive, looking curiously in Bucky’s. Bucky held his gaze, one eyebrow slightly raised. Did he think he could not lie because he was upper class?

“Let’s go back inside, James,” Alexander said, measured and dispassionate, turning his back to the both of them, clearly aware of the fact that there was something there he wasn’t getting.

When Bucky stood up from the bench, the blanket falling off his shoulders, Steve raised the corner of his lips and saluted with two fingers, before turning on his heels.

“Wait,” Bucky licked his lips, they were strangely dry.

“James,” Alexander repeated his name, a warning.

“I’ll be right there, just a second,” Bucky answered, without even looking at him.

He walked closer to Steve, who had stopped, hands in his pockets – Bucky could still remember the feeling of those palms on his skin, on his hair. He was looking at him sheepishly, that half-smile still on as if they were the only two people in the world sharing a secret. He hadn’t, not even for a second, looked at his metal hand, clearly on display.

“Yes, m’lord?”

Bucky felt himself blush at the title, even if Steve hadn’t pronounced it with sarcasm or spite. He cleared his throat and raised his chin. “Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow, Mr. Rogers. With my gratitude.”

Steve kept staring at him, lips quirked upwards as if he were unable to stop smiling. Bucky thought back to his hysterical laughter and felt the sudden urge to abandon himself to that kind of euphoria again.

“It would be my absolute pleasure, m’lord.”

A bubble of giddiness exploded in Bucky’s chest. He hadn’t even noticed how much he feared a refusal.


	5. Aftermath (April 12th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sketched many rich people?” Dum Dum asked, huffing a small cloud from his cigar.
> 
> Steve curled up a corner of his lips. “Just one.”
> 
> Dum Dum smirked. “Is she pretty?”
> 
> Steve rolled his eyes, trying hard not to blush. He thought about James Barnes’ pretty, pretty eyes, his long dark eyelashes framing blue irises. He could still feel his chest pressing against his own. He had been so close, so close.

Bucky couldn’t sleep. His thoughts kept going back to what had just happened, to what he almost did. He wondered if he’d lost his mind completely. Did he really want to kill himself? To jump in the freezing abyss, hit the water, crash against a wall of steel. He shivered at the thought. It would have been an awful way to go. Who would have told his mother? His sisters? How could he have been so selfish to think that was a viable option?

He took a big breath and got up, unable to stay still. His hands were shaking when he tied the knot of his dressing gown. If it hadn’t been for that man – for Steve Rogers… His heartbeat accelerated as a flash of blue eyes appeared in the back of his head, his hand, reaching out. He had seen his arm, he had seen the metal hand, and he had not said a thing. Well, not that there had been time to process, really. But… But people looked at it strangely all the time. Hell, Bucky looked at it strangely all the time. Some were afraid of it, some ashamed for him – mechanical parts, that was so… _inhuman_. And it didn’t matter if he had lost his arm in an attack, it didn’t matter if his mechanical arm was Wakandian, state-of-the-art, probably more technologically advanced than any of Stark’s creations. It didn’t even matter that an angry mob had taken it from him, together with his own father’s life, destroying his family’s future and his own house. It didn’t matter because it wasn’t human. It didn’t correspond to the aesthetic perfection requested by his social class; it didn’t even fit the criteria of what was considered proper of the human being. Having a mechanical limb made him less human, more like an object, one of the thousand automata that walked the cities. And Bucky knew, he knew that if he hadn’t been who he was, if his name hadn’t been Barnes, if his father hadn’t been Lord Wintar, if his family hadn’t gone back to William the Conqueror, well. He would have become a social pariah, no matter the reasons behind his amputation, his loss.

But Rogers hadn’t even blinked when he had grasped his left shoulder to press his body against the railing, clutching him in his arms. He hadn’t hesitated.

Bucky shook his head and exhaled. It didn’t mean anything.

He silently opened the door facing the corridor. He hated that he couldn’t access the promenade directly, but Alexander had assigned the rooms, preventing Bucky from accessing the living room and the promenade without going through his own quarters. He walked along the deserted corridor, his slippers moving noiselessly on the soft carpet, and accessed the living room from the outside. Everything was silent and still. He couldn’t even hear the vibrations of the propellers. If he hadn’t known any better, he could have sworn to be on land, in the townhouse in St James’s Square. The disposition of the sofas and tea tables was similar, the engraved wooden panels on the walls the same tone of rich brown.

He was about to open the door to the promenade – air, air, he needed air and a cigarette or ten –, when he noticed that Alexander’s door was ajar, and the light was on. Bucky frowned. Why would he be awake so late at night? Without making any noise, he got closer and closer, until he could peek from the small opening. He blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the light. The bed was made, there was no sign of Alexander. The wardrobe door was open and Rumlow was crouching in front of the heavy strongbox, open wide. Bucky could see the ostentatious wad of bills, so vulgar, and some folders full of documents.

What he could not see was in Rumlow’s hand.

Bucky pushed the door. “What do you think you are doing?”

Rumlow turned around, and as he suspected, the jewel in his hand shone blue. He was smirking, that awful, horrible grin he always put on when he wanted to remind Bucky that he’ll always have the upper hand.

“Merely admiring,” he answered, innocently. “You shouldn’t be up, after this evening’s…” he hesitated. “Emotions.”

Bucky closed his fists. “Put it back, it does not belong to you.”

Rumlow raised the beautiful object so that light would refract on it from several angles. It would have shaken the heart of the most frugal man. The deep blue of the central stone, shaped like a heart, seemed to shine in its own light, while the smaller diamonds framing it and going up to the clasp of the necklace twinkled like stars. The Heart of the Ocean had been in Bucky’s family for more than a century. They said it had belonged to Louis XVI, and after being lost in the French Revolution, it had come into the possession of the Earls of Wintar in an adventurous way that involved ruthless merchants, pirates and blood pacts in the moonlight.

“That’s where you’re wrong, James,” Rumlow said, almost sweetly, lowering his arm.

Bucky stepped forward. “You may have an agreement with Mr. Pierce, but that is my property,” he said, not breaking eye contact.

“It is Beatrice Pierce’s possession,” Rumlow corrected him.

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “It is my possession. Until I marry her,” he took the velvet case, abandoned atop of the safe. “Until I put a ring on her finger and pronounce her my wife,” he closed his left hand around the stone and pulled and Brock let go. “Lady Winnifred Barnes is Lady Wintar, I am Lord Wintar, and the Heart of the Ocean is my propriety,” he snapped the case closed, the noise sounding like a gunshot.

Rumlow smiled lazily, the kind of frown that cuts the hyena face when the weak prey manages to run away by sheer luck. _Next time_. “Careful, _Lord Wintar_ ,” he whispered, then leaned in, his heavy breath caressing Bucky’s ear. “Do not forget you are a guest on this ship.”

Bucky recoiled, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowed. “Know your place, Mr. Rumlow,” he hissed, then walked around him, pushed the necklace case inside the safe and slammed the door closed with such force that the lock clicked without the need to calibrate it.

That night, Bucky didn’t sleep.

The crew common room was smaller than the steerage General Room but not so different in fashion. Some benches, a couple of raw tables and chairs scattered around. Steve had sneaked in on his way back from the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him. He was still shaking, hands deep in his pockets and he could still feel the soreness left by the handcuffs that the Master-at-arms had snapped shut around his wrists. That wasn’t unfamiliar at least.

A quick look made him exhale in relief. Dum Dum, Jim and Gabe were sitting around the same table, smoking like chimneys and glaring at each other over a handful of cards. Steve grabbed a chair and dragged it to the table, before sitting.

“Need a fourth?”

Dum Dum raised his gaze. “Shucks, we have an illegal immigrant,” he deadpanned.

“Very funny,” Steve grabbed his cards, ignoring his protests. “Unlucky hand, Dugan.”

“I knew it!” Morita exclaimed, slamming a hand on the table and making the glasses half full of bourbon tinkle ominously. “I knew you were bluffing.”

“What are you doing here, Steve?” Gabe asked, a quiet smile on his lips, gathering the cards and shuffling them, the haphazard mess of objects they were gambling going back to the center. Steve flipped a coin on the top and half a package of menthol cigarettes. Dum Dum made a face.

Steve shrugged. “Thought I’d come to say ‘hi’ and win a coupla cigars from Dum Dum.”

Gabe hummed, then started giving the cards. Steve moved uncomfortably on the creaky chair, intertwining his fingers to prevent his friends from noticing that he was still shaking. Dum Dum and Morita were bickering over the interrupted game, but Gabe had his dark eyes trained on Steve, discreetly considering.

Gabe had always been the best at figuring out what was going on in Steve’s head. He had a way with people. It was a sixth sense or maybe only his quiet nature. He always thought before speaking and even then, he spoke rarely and just to say exactly what needed to be said. And Steve knew, he just knew, he had already grasped that something was up.

“So how is it to be a passenger?” Dum Dum asked, taking a sip from his glass.

Steve shrugged. “Definitely relaxing. I’ve been sketching a lot.”

“Yeah? What?”

Steve looked down at his cards. Not bad. “People, mostly. All classes. From the steerage deck, you can see all the way up to first-class.”

Even before he finished pronouncing the words, James Barnes was back in his thoughts: he was looking at the clear blue sky in front of them, his curls dancing in the morning air. Steve _had_ sketched him. Strong lines, dark charcoal against the white paper of his notebook. A Byronic hero. But then, then Steve had met him, scared and confused, holding onto a railing over the void. And then, then he had become more human, and more… real.

“Sketched many rich people?” Dum Dum asked, huffing a small cloud from his cigar.

Steve curled up a corner of his lips. “Just one.”

Dum Dum smirked. “Is she pretty?”

Steve rolled his eyes, trying hard not to blush. He thought about James Barnes’ pretty, pretty eyes, his long dark eyelashes framing blue irises. He could still feel his chest pressing against his own. He had been so close, so close.

“Oh, she is, isn’t she?”

“You’re doing all by yourself, Dugan,” Steve mumbled, then threw a couple more coins at the center of the table “I raise.”

“ _Anata ga kanojo no youna dareka ni chikazuku yori, tenshi ga anata no oshiri kara tobidasu no wa kantan kamo shiremasen_ ,” said Morita with a smirk and Steve looked at Gabe for help.

“Don’t look at me, pal, I know no Jap,” Gabe grinned, showing all his white teeth and threw a chocolate bar in the mix. “I raise as well.”

“I’ll tell you what he said. Forget it, mate,” Dugan said, with the air of someone who knew a thing or two about pretty classy ladies. “They are not for you.”

Morita shrugged. “Pretty much. It was more vulgar, though.”

“I’ll tell you about classy ladies,” Dugan said, twirling his red mustache. “Once, I met…”

“Oh God, not another one. Where is Dernier? I prefer a serenade to the mighty Republic.” Morita said, rolling his eyes.

Dum Dum elbowed him, then started recounting that time in which he had apparently seduced the wife of Lord Gormanston. Steve smiled, relaxing against the back of the chair, happy to just lose himself in one of Dugan’s story. This one included a fireplace, a hot air balloon, and an animatronic disguise. When Dugan started describing how he had taken apart one of the automata of the house and took its place wearing a random amount of scraps of metal, Steve’s thoughts went back to James Barnes once again.

He had a metal arm.

Steve had seen mechanical limbs before. He had seen prosthesis of every kind – proletarians used to lose fingers and legs and hands all the time, in the workhouses, it was inevitable, with the big machines that could cut steel. They all ended up wearing hydraulic appendages of every kind, if they cared enough to want that their cyborg limbs vaguely functioned as real ones, and they were forced to carry their own furnaces in heavy backpacks, always fearing that they would explode, sooner or later. And they were… considered less, sometimes. Looked askew. He knew middle-class women who made the sign of the cross when people with prostheses walked by; he had seen uptight men spitting on the ground three times as soon as they walked past the corner. Most people believed they brought bad luck.

It was all superstition, of course. His mother had explained it pretty soon to him when he was six and he had thrown a tantrum because he didn’t want to be squeezed inside an orthopedic corset because he knew, he knew he would have been mocked for it at school, bullied, pushed around. But Sarah Rogers, oh Sarah Rogers had none of it. She had looked at him straight in the eyes, hands on her hips and a stern expression on her face and she had told him. _Steve, there are always going to be bullies, if they won’t mock you for this, they will mock you for a hunched back later. They don’t need excuses to bully. Do you want to lose the opportunity to look at them straight in the eye because your back pains you too much to stand?_ And Steve remembered sniffing and shaking his head and the day after he had gone to school with his corset on and he had faced the bullies and never stopped facing them for the rest of his life.

And yet Steve had never seen an upperclassman with a prosthesis, nor he had ever seen a prosthesis which wasn’t hydraulic. How did James Barnes’ arm work? How could he move it so naturally, like a real one? If he hadn’t had to grasp him, Steve would have never noticed that his left arm wasn’t flesh and blood. And how did a man like him lose an arm? He was too young to have fought in some war. Was he born like that?

“Steve? Yoo-hoo, Rogers?”

Steve jumped up and all eyes were on him. Shit.

“Well, you really went cuckoo for this lass,” Dum Dum smirked.

Steve felt the blush creep up his neck. “No, I’m just– ”

Morita clicked his tongue. “If he tells us that _he_ is tired I am gonna shoot him.”

Steve chuckled, lowering his gaze on his cards. “Fair enough, I guess.”

“Give him a break,” Gabe said, pushing back his chair. “Come with me, I want to take some air.”

Steve suppressed a relieved sigh. It wasn’t as he didn’t enjoy the harmless banter of Dum Dum and Jim, but he didn’t want to lie to them and, well. He preferred not to talk about certain things. It wasn’t as if they didn’t _know_. Steve supposed they did – they had been in Paris with him and Steve had tried to be discreet, but… You notice things when you live in close quarters. And if they hadn’t said a word about it, it didn’t mean they approved. Steve knew they had his back and that was enough. He didn’t want to ask for more. And he didn’t want to lie.

So, he followed Gabe, quiet, thoughtful Gabe, and walked with him up to the steerage deck and shivered when the cold air of the night welcomed them outside. He purposefully strode towards the side of the ship, unable to look at where, just hours before, he had saved James Barnes’ life.

He leaned against the railing and closed his eyes. Beside him, Gabe lit a cigarette – it had a good smell, it wasn’t the lousy tobacco they had been smoking downstairs. Steve kept his eyes closed, inhaling and exhaling.

“ _Anata ga kare no youna dareka ni chikazuku yori, tenshi ga anata no oshiri kara tobidasu no wa kantan kamo shiremasen_ ,” said Gabe after a few minutes.

Steve blinked. “Is that Japanese?”

Gabe smirked and handed him the cigarette. “Yes.”

“I thought you didn’t know Japanese.”

“I thought maybe you would understand the sentence with the right pronoun.”

Steve froze.

“Wanna talk about it? I wanted to give you the chance to do it with less fuss if you wanted.”

Steve turned towards him, mouth opening and closing like a fish left dying in the open air. He wasn’t sure how to react. He didn’t know which was the right answer. Gabe looked at him for a second, his expression unreadable, then took a flask from inside his jacket and handed it to Steve, who whined 'thanks' and took a big gulp of whatever bad whisky was inside.

“Come on, Rogers. I met you at le Clair de Lune,” Gabe said, deciding to spare him, a grin spreading on his face.

Steve gaped. “You son of a…”

“Ah, watch your tongue,” Gabe chuckled, and Steve could swear he was embarrassed. He had never seen him embarrassed before.

“I can’t believe I never connected the dots,” Steve mumbled.

Le Clair de Lune was a queer bar in Pigalle. Well, it wasn’t a completely queer bar, it depended on when you went there, honestly. And yes, he had met Gabe there, but plenty of people passed by and looked around and…

“I thought you had a sweetheart back in Macon.”

Gabe shrugged. “I did. And I hope she is happy. I guess I will find out when I’ll be back in Macon. It’s time for me to go back. But I didn’t ask her to wait for me, it would have not been right. She wasn’t going to leave when I did,” he bit the corner of his lip. “And when in Paris…”

Steve burst into nervous, relieved laughter. “You dog! I can’t believe it! Why did you never say a word?”

“Why didn’t you?” Gabe retorted, more quietly, an easy smile on his lips and his eyes shining in the moonlight.

Steve laughter waned into an awkward smile. “Ah, Jones,” he said, and breathed out. “You got me there.”

They stayed in silence for a while, the wind singing a song through the sails.

“So, who is he?” Gabe asked after a while, throwing the butt of his cigarette overboard.

That was a good question.

“I kinda saved his life,” Steve said instead because he didn’t know the answer to Gabe’s question.

He just looked at Steve, curiously, waiting for him to go on. Steve shifted his weight from one leg to the other and prepared himself to tell the whole story, but when he opened his mouth James Barnes’ pleading eyes came back to him and… and he couldn’t betray his trust like that. He couldn’t… say everything. Not even to Gabe, not even after he himself had trusted Steve so blindly, so bravely. It wasn’t Steve’s story to tell.

“This man… he was leaning over the gunwale,” he said, trying to measure his words to avoid telling lies. “He lost his balance. I was the only one close enough and I grabbed him, and I brought him back overboard,” Steve licked his lips, running a hand through his hair. If he focused enough, he could still recall the sensation of James’ hand curling around his own, the softness of his skin and those blue, blue eyes… “I had already seen him, earlier in the afternoon, up, on the first-class deck; he was looking so…” he stopped in time. “He was looking at the ocean.”

Gabe didn’t say a word for a while. He took a sip of his horrible whisky, his thumb drawing imaginary lines over the side of his tin flask.

“ _Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt / From all affection and from all contempt_ ,” he said, after a while.

They exchanged a smile.

“You know your Byron,” Steve said.

Gabe scoffed and shifted his footing, turning his back to the sea and leaning heavily on his elbows. He looked up, towards the towering sails. “Don’t act so surprised, Rogers,” he said, almost cheekily. “We met at le Clair de Lune.”

Steve paused, mind going back to that day. He narrowed his eyes. “Does that mean that Dernier…?”

“Nah, he was just drunk.”

“No, course. Right.”

> _That man of loneliness and mystery,_
> 
> _Scarce seen to smile and seldom heard to sigh_
> 
> _[…]_
> 
> _Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt_
> 
> _From all affection and from all contempt._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote is again from Lord Byron's _The Corsair_ (1.11).
> 
> Le Clair de Lune was indeed a very popular queer bar in Paris.
> 
> The sentences in Japanese, kindly freely translated by my friend [ Shun ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHUNDIANDROMEDA/pseuds/SHUNDIANDROMEDA) mean something on the line of: "You would as like have angels fly our of your ass as get next to the likes of her/him".


	6. You see people (April, 13th 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I was alone, and nothing was waiting for me back in Brooklyn, no brothers or sisters or close kin there. And I was angry. I’ve always been an angry kid, still am.”
> 
> “I would not say angry,” Bucky stopped to take out a cigarette from a silver case and lit it. He offered one to Steve, who shook his head.
> 
> “And what would you call throwing yourself in any fistfight you can find?”
> 
> Bucky smiled a cocky smile. “Passionate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all for today! They get to know each other and Steve... well, who can blame him?

Day 4 – April 13th, 1912

The General Room was full of light, Steve had never seen a steerage common room so bright and luminous in his whole life. Well, it wasn’t as if he had much expertise, sure, he had never traveled on an airship before. His outbound journey to Europe had been on a liner and he had spent all his time squished on a berth, dirty and nauseous, doing his best not to retch every time the stench of strange foods and vomit and other bodily excretions became insufferable, praying that the coffin with his mother body wasn’t going to break because of the violent motions of the hull. It had been a nightmare.

The Titanic, though.

There was a common room and a dining room and even a smoking room complete with spittoons. It was another world.

Steve was sketching with a pencil. It was less messy than charcoal and easier to deal with. The page of his notebook was full of small picturesque scenes: a shrieking boy running on unsteady legs to catch a scurrying rat, a mother gently braiding her daughter’s hair, an old man snoring with his hands crossed over his pronounced belly. Right now, he was fixing the shadowing underneath a little girl’s chin. She had chocolate brown curls with a cute pink bow as a decoration and she was giggling at some story her brother was telling her. It was the same child that had been playing with that girl’s trinkets the day before. Maybe he could give the picture to her family, as a gift.

As he was adding details to the bow, the clock struck ten o’clock. Steve’s heart started to beat faster. Damn weak heart. He was trying _not_ to think about it.

_“Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow, Mr. Rogers. With my gratitude.”_

_“It would be my absolute pleasure, m’lord.”_

Why did he have to be so stupid? Dinner in first class. That was the most moronic idea that had ever crossed his mind. He didn’t do well with rich people. Most of the time he had to fight the urge of punching them straight in the face. So yeah. Maybe not. And after all, James Barnes had probably invited him out of obligation, he didn’t really expect Steve to show up to first class and dine with a bunch of loaded self-obsessed dirty crumbs.

Steve squeezed the bridge of his nose. Well, he had said yes. And he was a man of his word. No going back. He tucked the pencil behind his ear and tilted his head on the side, stretching his arms in front of him, his hands holding the sides of the notebook. It looked nice enough. The little girl had a sweet, joyful expression, with a pinch of mischief. He was about to get up when he noticed that a sudden silence had fallen in the room.

Steve frowned, lowering the notebook and turned to see what had stopped people from going on with their chatter, plunking the piano, arguing, playing chess, doing whatever they were doing… and his heart precipitated to his heels.

James Buchanan Barnes, the man he had saved from certain death twelve hours before, was in the middle of the third class General Room.

He looked devilishly handsome and utterly out of place in a pale grey pinstripe suit, a cream-colored waistcoat where – Steve noticed – the chain of a pocket watch was visible, and a tie done so tightly that Steve wondered how the man wasn’t cyanotic.

When their eyes met, Steve felt as if all the air had been taken from his lungs. Instinctively, his hand closed around the pack of asthma cigarettes in the back pocket of his trousers. James Barnes walked towards him, nodding awkwardly to the flabbergasted faces around him. When he reached him, Steve noticed for the first time that they were almost the same height and that he had gotten up without really realizing.

“Hello, Mr. Rogers,” James said with a certain expectancy.

Steve nodded, stiffly. “Hello again.”

Was he supposed to say ‘Hello’ to a lord? Boy, everything was so surreal.

“May I speak with you?”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “Yeah,” he managed, breathless, but his body didn’t follow up on his words. He seemed to be glued to the floor of the weirdly clean General Room.

James raised an eyebrow. “In private,” he added and, honestly, he shouldn’t have needed to.

“Y-yes, of course,” Steve stumbled on his own feet, hurried to put together his sketchbook haphazardly, and finally motioned James ahead. “After you.” He mumbled, unnecessarily, trying to gather back the ability to put one foot after the other.

Slowly, as they walked towards the white-painted staircase, wooden tiles creaking under their feet, the shock of having a first-class passenger among steerage nobodies slowly faded away from the room and the usual chitchat resumed as if nothing had happened.

They climbed the stairs in silence and walked along the boat deck in silence, and only after what seemed like a thousand miles, James started to talk, with an easiness that masked badly his nervousness. “Do you know how an airship flies?”

Steve blinked. He didn’t know what to expect, but that wasn’t certainly it. “No,” he simply answered, because he didn’t have anything smarter to say.

Something twinkled in James’ eyes and before Steve could mistake it for patronizing compliance, he threw himself in an explanation, badly covered enthusiasm seeping through the words. “It seems silly, but it all goes back to a very simple physics law,” he said, cheerfully. “It’s called Archimedes’ principle. Archimedes was a Greek mathematician, he lived in Syracuse in the third century before Christ. He was the first to describe why boats floated. He wrote a treaty on it, ‘On floating bodies’ and, putting it very simply, he said that ‘any object, totally or partially immersed in a fluid or liquid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object’.”

Steve was confused, but James went on.

“So basically, when a body is immersed in a fluid, it experiences an apparent loss in weight, and that is the weight of the fluid displaced by the part of the body that had been immersed,” he paused, tongue pressed between his lips.

“So, basically,” Steve said. “The part of the object immersed takes the place of the, uh, liquid,” he had no idea where this was going, nor how it could relate to… flying.

James nodded and Steve frowned. “But we are floating. In the air. And air is not a liquid.”

James’ eyes crinkled in mirth, even if his lips just barely twitched. “No, but it has density, as much as water has. An airship controls its buoyancy in the air much like a submarine does in the water.”

Steve’s mouth formed a perfect “o” of surprise. “I, uh, guess it makes sense.”

“Of course, then you have to take into consideration the density of the pressure and the net force of the object but it’s… simple as that,” James started to fiddle absent-mindedly with the hem of his jacket and Steve had to fight the sudden urge to take his hand.

“How do you know that?” he asked instead.

James shrugged, almost sheepishly. “I am a bit of a physics enthusiast,” he answered, very diplomatically. Then he took a deep breath, as a diver right before the jump. “And what are you an enthusiast of, Mr. Rogers?”

“Steve,” he answered, automatically. He couldn’t keep calling this… _lord_ , ‘James’ in his head if he kept addressing him with ‘Mr. Rogers’. Also, it sounded like the name of a schoolteacher. A boring one.

“Steve,” James conceded, mimicking an American accent and Steve laughed openly.

“What?” James went on, doing the worst impression of an American that Steve had ever heard. “Ain’t I enough offa New Yorker fo’ your taste, Steve?”

“That ain’t how I speak!” Steve protested, still grinning like an idiot.

The corners of James’ eyes crinkled again. “Ain’t it, Steve?”

Steve was actively trying to get offended, but it was quite difficult. He cleared his throat. “So, how shouldst I speaketh, mine own liege?”

James grinned broadly, blue eyes almost sparkling the morning light. They passed by people reading or talking in steamer chairs, some of them glancing curiously at the mismatched pair they made.

“I can change register,” he shot back and suddenly his accent was way darker, his own voice dropping down; the vowels sounded like a drawl, the ‘r’ of ‘register’ vibrated on his tongue rather than lingering in the back of his throat. A shiver ran down Steve’s spine.

They stopped walking and they looked at each other – just looking. James’ eyes were still soft around the edges, his forehead relaxed. He looked younger, almost a boy, different from the broody, Romantic hero Steve had glimpsed at the day before on the upper deck and even more different from the scared little thing he had been, holding onto the railings in the middle of the night. James looked at him with those dark blue eyes, sad and inscrutable, and Steve felt as if he was taking a test he had not signed up for.

“Bucky,” he finally said, resuming his lazy wandering.

“What?” Steve asked, baffled.

“Bucky,” he repeated. “You can call me Bucky.”

“Bucky,” Steve tried the name, then a grin spread on his lips. “How do you pronounce it?”

Bucky bumped him with his shoulder.

And so they kept talking and they kept walking and then they talked some more and walked some more. They ended up eating two huge slices of apple pie for lunch, courtesy of the Verandah Café, sitting on deck-chairs, their knees bumping against each other. People now openly stared at them, but Bucky didn’t seem to care; it was as if something had unlocked in him – he talked a lot with his hands, he smiled openly, going on and on about things that Steve found utterly incomprehensible (‘I met the Wright brothers once, but I never flew with their machine. I would have loved to be there when Blériot crossed the Channel a couple of years ago’, ‘They say Howard Stark can make even cars fly. Cars, Steve. Without steam’, ‘I love moving pictures. I asked a kinetoscope for my eight birthday, but I only got a phenakistiscope’). It was fascinating. Steve itched to draw him, his long fingers, the curve of his mouth, the little droplet of custard at the corner of his lips. And Bucky was also a great listener – he looked at Steve with a focused expression, he nodded at the right moments and asked precise, to the point questions – he was witty and smart and infuriatingly informed. Strangely enough, it took them almost half a day to get to the personal stuff.

“I’ve been on my own since I was fifteen,” Steve said, “Since my ma died. She was Irish and she missed Ireland so I, uh, sold everything I owned and brought her back. I think she would have wanted to be buried in her homeland. She used to tell me stories,” he smiles. “She had eloped with my father, they went on the run because he was Protestant and she was Catholic.”

Bucky smiled. “Very Romeo and Juliet.”

Steve chuckled softly. “Yond is wherefore I knoweth mine own Shakespeare.”

“You are ridiculous,” he cackled. “Go on.”

“I was alone, and nothing was waiting for me back in Brooklyn, no brothers or sisters or close kin there. And I was angry. I’ve always been an angry kid, still am.”

“I would not say angry,” Bucky stopped to take out a cigarette from a silver case and lit it. He offered one to Steve, who shook his head.

“And what would you call throwing yourself in any fistfight you can find?”

Bucky smiled a cocky smile. “Passionate.”

Steve chuckled. “Whatever you say, Your Majesty,” he moved before Bucky could bump his shoulder and wiggled his eyebrows. They smiled knowingly at each other – boy, Steve felt as if he had known this man his whole life – and resumed their idle wandering. “So I lit on out of there, I boarded a ship with my ma’s coffin and brought her back to Ireland. And I haven’t been back since.”

Bucky nodded, the smoke of his cigarette swept away from the wind before it could lazily form curious shapes mid-air, his curls dancing, freeing themselves from the pomade he had accurately applied. Even the tightly arranged knot of his tie had loosened.

“I want to thank you for what you did,” he said, slowly, with a sort of finality, carefully avoiding looking at Steve. He was serious again, his sharp cheekbones painted in the softest shade of pink. “Not just for… pulling me back. But for your discretion.”

Steve opened his mouth to say it was nothing, to say that everyone would have done what he had done, minimizing, but then he noticed the tight line of Bucky’s jaw, the way his fists clenched and unclenched as he walked and realized how much this was costing him. Facing what had happened, saying it out loud. He wanted Steve to acknowledge it, to accept the fact that he held Bucky’s pride in his hands, nothing more. So, Steve nodded and said. “You’re welcome.”

“I know what you must be thinking,” Bucky went on, surprising him. “Poor little rich boy! What does he know about misery?”

But, truth was, Steve didn’t. He didn’t know now, after talking non-stop with this man all day long, but he hadn’t known even then when he had seen him one gust of wind from crushing his skull against the propellers of the Titanic. Steve, who was angry at so many things, for so many reasons, he hadn’t been angry at James Buchanan Barnes for wanting to take his own life despite his privileged condition. He had been… heartbroken.

“No,” he said, hoping to sound as sincere as he felt. Bucky stopped, stunned, and turned towards him, his lovely pouty mouth ajar. “No,” Steve repeated. “That’s not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was… what could have happened to this man to make him think he had no way out?”

Bucky breathed out from his nose, then stopped beside Steve, leaning heavily against the railing. He stayed silent for a couple of minutes. “I did not,” he answered in the end, giving each letter so much weight Steve felt immediately Atlas’ burden on his shoulders. “I was not… I did not consciously make the decision to throw myself overboard.” If Steve hadn’t been so close, he wouldn’t have grasped all the words Bucky was whispering. “I was looking at the sea and suddenly I, ah, it seemed so much simpler just to let go. Sometimes you just want to back away from the fight.”

And no, Steve couldn’t understand that. He had never, never once in his life backed away from a fight. He had always pushed his way against all odds: when he was a scrawny little kid who was bullied one day after the other; when he had to lie to his mother, telling her he had not quit art school, he was still going, and instead he worked night and day to buy her medicine; when he had left everything he had ever known to go to the other side of the world, bringing her back where she belonged, then living day by day in a completely different continent, from the construction sites in Belfast to the markets and the streets of Paris.

Steve couldn’t understand that, but there was a part of him that desperately wanted to. He wanted to know why Bucky – who had seemed so in love with every little thing, with technology and astronomy and books and moving pictures and music – could want to renounce to all of that.

“I am bankrupt,” Bucky finally said with a deep sigh and Steve wondered if it was the first time he’d said it out loud. “My family is bankrupt. My good name is literally the only thing I have left. My father was murdered last year,” he said it expressionless, distancing himself from it, but Steve noticed how his gloved, mechanical fist clenched, a whirring sound of gears barely audible over the wind. “The aftermath of his death left us drowning in debt. I have three younger sisters who will soon want to marry and my mother does not know anything about our finances,” he bit his lower lip, then went on. “I am trying… my best. Alexander – Mr. Pierce – he was my father’s partner. He has been helping a lot. I would be lost without him. He suggested the best lawyers and accountants in the country and now I, ah, I am going to Philadelphia to marry his daughter.”

Steve slumped beside Bucky, pressing his shoulder against his, the rough wool of his jacket scratching against the soft fabric of Bucky’s three-piece. _My father was murdered last year_. Death and grief were things Steve hadn’t experienced since his mother’s departure. _I have three younger sisters who will soon want to marry and my mother does not know anything about our finances_. And being responsible for a family... Sarah and Steve had always taken care of each other. Steve had slaved for medicine and had spent endless nights at his mother’s bedside, but she had done the same for him when he was a small and scrawny kid, always on the verge of pneumonia. But the rest of it… Bucky was responsible for an entire legacy. Steve had no idea how lordship worked in the slightest, but he vaguely imagined a castle or a mansion or an estate or some land of the sort. And maybe farmers worked that land, tenants that depended on Bucky and his ability to administrate the territory.

“Do you know her well?”

Bucky shook his head. “I never met her. But they tell me she is proper and suitable,”

_Very romantic_ , Steve thought but bit his tongue.

“And I do not doubt it for a second. She is Alexander’s daughter, after all. Her dowry will help the estate, my sisters will be able to have decent dowries themselves and all will be well.”

“What’s her name?” Steve asked.

Bucky seemed taken aback by the question. “Mh? Beatrice.”

“Beatrice,” Steve repeated. It sounded very… proper and suitable.

Bucky smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Five hundred invitations have gone out,” he said. “The Duke of Norfolk will be there.”

Steve had no idea who the Duke of Norfolk could possibly be, but it sounded like a big deal.

“And all the while, I feel I’m standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming at the top of my lungs and no one even looks up,” Bucky blinked repeatedly and looked shocked by his own words.

Steve leaned a hand on his forearm and Bucky stayed perfectly still, eyes fixed there, his breath coming in small huffs, as he slowly realized what he had just confessed to a complete stranger.

Steve wondered if Bucky had friends, if he had someone who could talk about this in his life, but deep down he already knew the answer. It was written in Bucky’s sadness, in his turmoil, in the way he had felt that jumping from a ship would have been more merciful than this. And he felt so close to him, to his pain and to his anger, despite the insurmountable social difference between them. Steve had been filled by the same rage, by the same profound loneliness. He had been overlooked and ignored for years – for his size, for his poverty. And this man… he was so utterly _alone_.

“Do you think you could love her?” he asked, bluntly, because maybe – maybe if he found an ally in this woman if she could be the one to fight beside him…

And something awful churned his stomach, a green monster with powerful jaws and a growling roar in the back of its throat. He feared Bucky’s answer. Bucky who was handsome and fun, whom he had met the day before and felt as if he had known since they were little kids playing fetch in the streets of Red Hook. What if he said yes? Well it was good, wasn’t it? It was good because in that way he…

But Bucky looked at him in the eye, irises the color of the ocean below them, eyes who betrayed his pain and his loneliness and the sense of wrongness he felt and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

And Steve knew.

He knew what that denial meant; he knew that that little, almost insignificant gesture brought on itself a burden even heavier than the responsibility that rested on Bucky’s shoulders. And the revelation of it seemed more intimate than the light touches they had exchanged all day, the way they had stolen glances and smiles and all those little puzzle pieces that they had scattered around.

A second after, though, Bucky’s eyes lost all their emotion, his jaw clenched and he looked away, moving on the side. Steve mourned the lost contact.

“You shouldn’t be asking me this,” he said, coldly.

Steve frowned, confused. “Why not? It’s just a question.”

“This is not a suitable conversation,” Bucky went on, mechanically.

He was panicking.

“Bucky, listen– ”

“You don’t know me and I don’t know you and… I sought you out to thank you and now I’ve thanked you. This is my part of the ship. I think you should leave,” he stepped back, arms wrapping around himself like an armor.

Steve – which had no sense of self-preservation, clearly – instinctively stepped forward, entering his personal space. “Now, wait a minute…” he reached out to grab Bucky’s elbow but he instinctively jerked back and Steve lost his balance for a second and before he could stop it his sketchbook tipped over and fell on the ground and most of the sheets scattered around the deck.

Bucky froze. Half the first-class passengers were staring at them, clearly disapproving, raising their eyebrows at Steve’s drawings. Some started whispering, some others looked uncertain as if they were about to call someone of the crew to bodily remove that steerage passenger who had just tried to grab one of them and was now picking up papers with questionable images on them.

Because that was what Steve was doing, angrily, on all fours on the wooden tiles of the upper deck. Well, fuck them, and fuck those stupid papers and fuck even James Buchanan Barnes! Who exactly did he think he was? Just because he was sad and handsome and had a difficult relationship with his feelings towards…

“Here.”

Steve raised his gaze, ready to go off like a firecracker and there he was, Bucky Barnes, kneeling on the floor in his expensive suit, a handful of papers clutched in his hands and embarrassed, sorry eyes.

“I apologize,” he added, with as much dignity as one could muster kneeling on the deck of an airship.

Steve felt all his fury die out. “You are a jerk, you know that?” he grumbled, defeated, and he abandoned himself against the legs of a folded-up steamer chair.

Bucky blinked, appalled – Steve was pretty sure nobody had ever dared to speak to him like that – then, much to Steve surprise, crawled until he was beside him and sat down, shoulder to shoulder, still holding Steve’s drawings.

“What are these?” he asked, gruffly.

Steve raised his eyebrows in a _What do you think, genius?_ way.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Shut up,” then looked down at the first one. “Are you an artist?” he asked, brows furrowing, fingers brushing the side of a portrait. It was a woman breastfeeding her baby. Steve had sketched her in the waiting room of the Gard du Nord, three or four months before.

He felt his lips twitch. “You seem surprised.”

Bucky glanced at him, almost reproachful, then went back to his exam, shuffling through the papers. An old woman’s hands, a sleeping man, father, and daughter on the rail.

“These are… good. They are exquisite.”

Bucky looked transfixed and Steve felt a blush running up his neck. “They didn’t think too much of them in old Paree,” he slouched the end of the word, looking towards the sea.

“Paris?” Bucky repeated, rhetorically, and then tucked the father and daughter sketch behind the others, revealing… oh, Steve was in trouble.

They were a series of nudes. Steve remembered every single one of them, he remembered doing a preliminary sketch, just vague shapes and positions, then slowly adding details, lingering on the languid beauty of the bodies, their hands, their eyes, reproducing every mole and every wrinkle, giving them essence, soul. There were women with soft breasts and thin fingers and young men with luscious curls covering their eyes, the powerful masculinity of their forms on display.

“And these were drawn from life?” Bucky’s voice sounded slightly strangled in his throat.

“Yeah,” Steve glanced nervously at the passengers strolling by.

“Well, you know what they say about Paris,” Bucky was smiling again, a little shy, a little smug.

“And what do they say?”

“Lots of people willing to take their clothes off.”

Steve chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief, trying not to stare too much as Bucky went through his works, taking the other sketches from Steve's hands, commenting on the details, asking questions, spending long minutes just looking at the faces. Steve wondered if he was trying to imagine their life – these men and these women Steve had drawn during the years – what kind of experiences had brought them to pose for a nobody like Steve Rogers, who barely spoke their tongue and made his livelihood moving boxes and selling cheap portraits to tourists and families.

“Who is this man?” Bucky asked at some point. “You draw him frequently.”

Steve smiled pleasantly, trying not to look for the many mistakes he had done in sketching him. “His name’s Arnaud,” he said.

He could feel his own heart beating faster in his chest. He knew what came next, he knew that he had not drawn only Arnaud’s hands, or his beautiful features or the soft curves of his hips – almost feminine in their shape.

Bucky cleared his throat. “A friend?” he asked, without looking at him, fingers fiddling with the corner of the sheet, the tip of his ears bright red.

Steve chuckled and nodded. “A friend.”

_Turn the page_ , he thought, a strange excitement running through him. _Turn the page_. He knew it was there, he knew it must be there. And how did he forget about it? How was it not the first thing he had thought about?

And Bucky turned the page and Steve’s heart lost a beat when he heard Bucky’s breath hitch in his throat. In the portrait, Steve had captured the leisurely way in which the young man with short dark curls was lying on a bed, one arm stretched up, the other half covering his groin with a sheet. His eyes were closed, his expression relaxed. His legs were splayed in front of him: one flesh, the other a very simple prosthesis, starting from the knee down to the attentively carved foot.

Bucky’s eyes were wide, his breaths quick and shaky, his tongue peeking swiftly between his lips. He looked at loss of words, overwhelmed. Steve grasped at his own knee, grounding himself. Was this a good idea, letting him see? Was Bucky ready for it? Was this just a terrible, horrible mistake? They were walking on thin ice, Steve thought. He had no idea what was allowed and what was not. Bucky was a mystery he wanted to solve so badly it hurt. What had happened to him? Who was this man, for real? Why was Steve so drawn to him?

Finally, Bucky raised his gaze and looked straight at him and in his blue eyes there was a whirlwind of emotions, a hurricane, the end of the world. Steve wondered if drowning felt like that, like falling and being unable to catch his breath, like asthma, but a thousand times worse, like oxygen deprivation, but a hundred times more intense. He felt dizzy and he had no idea where was up and where was down, where was the ground and where was the sky. The only thing he could see was the deep, deep blue of Bucky’s eyes.

“You see people,” Bucky said, in the end, in a whisper.

And finally, Steve inhaled, sharply, quickly, and he looked at Bucky, all of him, his hands curled around his drawings – his flash one, long fingers, elegant, refined, and the metal one, covered by a white glove; he wished he could see beyond it, he wished he could see the mechanisms and the cold metal and the carvings. Steve’s eyes snapped back up, to Bucky’s enthralled expression, those expressive eyebrows, the sharp cheekbones, the Cupid bow mouth he was tormenting with his teeth.

Steve looked at Bucky and wished he could kiss him.

“I see you,” he said, instead.


	7. In the snake pit (April 13th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That’s Benjamin Guggenheim with his mistress, Madame Aubert.”  
> Steve blinked. He had no idea who that was supposed to be, but Bucky seemed to have a lot of fun. “You are really enjoying this, aren’t you?”  
> Bucky’s chuckle, so close to his ear his breath caressed his neck, sent shivers down Steve’s spine. “Mrs. Guggenheim is at home with the children, of course.”  
> “Of course,” he said, maybe too stiffly.  
> “Relax, Steve,” he said, soft and slightly melancholic. “This is my only amusing pastime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello! Back again with another bunch of chapters! :D
> 
> Don't worry, the next amazing artwork is almost here.
> 
> Cameos of: Maria Carbonell, Calvin Chadwick and half of the not-fictional 1912 upper class.

It was late afternoon and the sky was taking that pink glower that had inspired generations of writers and painters. Steve and Bucky were leaning against the A-rail aft, shoulder to shoulder. Behind them, stewards scurried to serve tea and hot cocoa.

“After that, I worked on a squid boat in Le Havre,” Steve was saying, a pinch between his eyebrows, trying to keep track of what he had done. Bucky had asked, and he was delivering. He wondered if it was a way for him to imagine a different life, one he could not live.

“Then I moved to logging in inner Normandy, then logging got to be too much like work, so I went down to Paris, to see what the real artists were doing. I sketched portraits there, in Montmartre, for ten cents apiece.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “A whole ten cents?”

Steve nodded, absent-mindedly. “Yeah, it was great money. I could make the equivalent of a dollar a day, sometimes. But only in summer,” he scratched a fragment of varnish that was peeling of the railing. He looked at it flying away over the sea.

“There is a place,” Bucky started. “I always wanted to visit. Like– When I was little, I had this book with a lot of beautiful places in the world, and it had pictured, beautifully drawn,” he hesitated, lost in some memory. “And the Grand Canyon one… in was on two whole pages, colored. It was glorious. I was fascinated.”

Steve looked at him, at the way the golden light of the dusk played with his dark eyelashes, painting them gold, how his curls danced on his forehead and his eyes sparkled as blue as the ocean. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I get it.”

Bucky glanced at him briefly, almost sheepishly. “Say we'll go there, sometime. To the Grand Canyon. Even if we only ever just talk about it.”

Steve pushed against Bucky’s shoulder, trying not to gloat too much at the use of the plural. “Sure, we’ll go. And you know where we should go as well? Just as we land?”

Bucky shook his head.

“To Coney Island.”

Bucky grinned and his eyes crinkled and Steve thought, _Yes!_

“The amusement park?”

“We'll drink cheap beer and cheap candies and ride on the Cyclone, the rollercoaster until we throw up, and we'll sunbathe on the beach... then take a dip, right in the surf.”

Bucky chuckled, head lolling heavily between his hunched shoulders. “Alright, Rogers. I never had candy floss, so I expect that.”

Steve furrowed his eyebrows. “What is… You mean cotton candy?”

Bucky’s lips twitched. “I dunno, Yankee, watcha say?”

Steve burst into laughter and pushed Bucky with both hands, sending him tripping against a chair, yelping in indignation. The woman sitting on the other side of the coffee table looked at them with a scornful expression and Steve expected Bucky to apologize profusely and do all the kind of stuff a man of his stature usually did, but Bucky just succumbed to a series of giggles, stalking back towards Steve with a very determined expression.

Steve raised his arms in surrender and just when Bucky was about to jump him or tackle him or tickle him to death or whatever was his intention, Steve blanched because, on the other side of the promenade, the man Bucky was traveling with, together with a short man with a thin mustache, and an officer who most probably was the Captain of the Titanic himself had just turned the corner.

Steve raised his eyebrows meaningfully and Bucky stopped abruptly as if he had read his mind. Steve cleared his throat, trying not to be too conspicuous, and took in the disheveled state in which they both were – rumpled clothes, messy hair, and red cheeks – after spending all day outside. Bucky turned on his heels just when the merry company approached them.

“Alexander,” Bucky said with a forced smile. “Good evening. You remember Mr. Rogers.”

Alexander Pierce looked at Steve as if he was a dangerous insect he couldn’t wait to squash under his perfectly polished shoe. “Unforgettable.”

Steve raised an eyebrow.

Bucky licked his lips, quickly. “Mr. Rogers, these are Mr. Stark, the engineer who designed this ship,” he nodded towards the short man with the mustache who seemed to gloat in the general awkwardness of the situation. “And Captain Chadwick.”

Steve nodded. “Pleased to meet you all.”

Bucky straightened his waistcoat. “Last night, Mr. Rogers pulled me on board when I almost fell off the ship to retrieve my pocket watch. He will be our guest tonight at dinner.”

Stark’s eyes glimmered as he winked towards Bucky’s hip. “It looks like you managed to save both man and watch, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve felt Bucky stiffening by his side and dedicated him a tight smile. “I am a man of many talents.”

Stark’s grin widened. “Just the right man to have around in a…” he looked up and down their unkempt appearance. “…sticky spot.”

Steve wanted to answer back, amused, with some snarky remark of his own when he remembered that Alexander Pierce was there and that Bucky actually cared for his opinion and bit his tongue, right when the bugler started to sound the meal call.

Stark rubbed his hands together, cheerfully. “I don’t know why they insist on announcing dinner like a cavalry charge, but I like it.”

Chadwick patted him on a shoulder in a companionable way, laughing openly, as if Stark had just told the best joke he had ever heard. “Well, Stark, you made the ship.”

He shrugged, helplessly. “I didn’t decide this. Did you decide this, Captain? I didn’t think so. I will make sure it will be the dinner call to every single Stark Mansion meal, though. Now, where is Jarvis?”

“Shall we go dress, gentlemen?” Bucky asked, stiffly, stepping forward and motioning Pierce and the Captain towards the entrance. He looked over his shoulder with a small, apologetic smile. “See you at dinner, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve saluted him, eyes not leaving him until he turned the corner.

“Hey, third-class hero.”

Steve turned towards the very irritating voice of the man. Stark was looking at him with a certain… admiration. Was it possible?

“You're about to go into the snake pit. I hope you're ready. What are you planning to wear?” he took an expensive-looking cigarette from a – was that really a solid gold case? – and lit it effortlessly with a strange contraption that clicked and ticked even when it was doing absolutely nothing. Jeez, that man was strange.

Steve looked down at his own clothes, then back at him.

Stark smiled wolfishly, before turning on his heels with a flourish that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a dancefloor. “I figured. Follow me.”

“Where?” Steve deadpanned.

Stark looked over his shoulder with an incredulous expression. “My stateroom of course.”

Steve crossed his arms over his chest, defensive. “And why would I do that?”

Stark massaged his temples as if Steve’s stubbornness was giving him a headache. “Listen, Rogers. You may not have grasped what you are doing,” he walked back towards him, then pointed to the first class smoking room at his left. “You. Snakepit. Tonight. These rags? No do.”

Steve’s jaw dropped. “Just because you are an entitled rich fella you have no right to treat me like…”

“Have you seen Barnes?” Stark shot back. “Kicked puppy look, very handsome. He invited you,” he pointed at his chest with his index finger and Steve fought the urge to break it. “I bet you don’t want him to be the talk of the town.”

Steve pressed his lips between his teeth, then exhaled noisily from his nose. “I don’t think he would care about how I dress.”

“Maybe,” Stark conceded, then put both his hands on Steve’s shoulders and, honestly, what was with this man and physical contact? “But I bet he would appreciate ogling you in a penguin suit,” Steve tried to school his expression not to betray anything – not guilt, because he would not betray Bucky, not outrage and not shock because, well, he didn’t really mind if Bucky wanted...

“Also, less chances to be court-martialed when you inevitably break Alexander Pierce’s nose,” Stark winked.

And wasn’t that a cheerful image?

“Can’t wait to see that,” he patted Steve’s shoulders, then whistled softly. “Think about it, my friend. Cabin B-4. But think quickly, because you are way broader than me – does real manual work make shoulders like these? Jeez – and way taller, so we’ll have to fix a white tie for you.”

Steve wondered if those poor people in asylums felt the same way as he was feeling when they were all wrapped up in straitjackets and then felt guilty for even thinking that.

This was a colossal mistake.

He took a deep breath before marching towards the shiny door that gave access to the Grand Staircase and managed a tight smile when the automaton there bowed and smartly opened it.

“Good evening, sir,” said the metallic voice.

He nodded curtly, trying not to think what the people around him would think of him if Howard Stark hadn’t somehow managed to squish him into an impressively high-quality white tie. Before he could stop himself, his fingers ran to his neck, hooking between collar and skin. He was suffocating, he was not going to pull this off, he wasn’t going to be, after all, able to show these entitled sons of…

He couldn’t finish his thought because his mouth opened in astonishment as he took in the opulence of the Grand Staircase. It was huge, bigger than all the places he had lived in his life put together. The paneling at the walls shone brightly, like a new penny, the brass of the sweet curves that embellished the balcony twinkled like gold. Fresh, white flowers blossomed in every corner, on every decorative table with thin legs which had no other function than being pretty. Steve walked, transfixed, towards the staircase itself, and under his brand-new shoes, slightly too small and polished so much he could see his reflection in them, there were only feet and feet of soft rugs, weaved exquisitely with flowers and leaves. His hands curled almost reverently on the inlaid wood of the banister and he looked down. The staircase ended with an elegant flourish, a winged bronze cupid ready to shoot his arrow. The floor looked marble – or maybe it was, Steve couldn’t say – tastefully decorated in a minimalistic way, black and white, so not to clash with the artfully placed rugs.

And then– and then Steve turned his gaze up and he physically felt his jaw fall. The glass dome towered over the staircase like a benevolent god looking down at his creation; the thin skeleton of metal only added grace to the soaring explosion of light coming from its center. The electrical light shone so brightly through the onion-shaped chandelier that Steve was unable to recognize the minuscule chains of crystals it was made of. His feet led him down, his hands running smoothly along the turn-ups of his jacket. He kept looking around, both fascinated and insulted by such a display of opulence. He didn’t know how he felt about it.

There were women of every age, ethereal and haughty in their floor long dresses – it made them look taller, nobler, and even if Steve was by all means bigger, he suddenly felt as small as he had been back in Brooklyn, before his late grow spur, before manual work, before coming to Europe. Everyone looked so… at ease, in control, so conscious about their status, sure that nothing and no one could ever take all this from them. This was their world, their privilege, a beautiful golden universe that existed for them alone.

Steve wanted to scream. He felt like an imposter. He felt like a spy. He wanted to be a spy. He thought about those men in Ireland, executed by British firing squads because they had thrown explosives at embassies and palaces of the government and, God, he felt for them even more than when he had read their names in the newspaper. For the first time in his life, he _really_ understood why they did what they did. And at the same time, he couldn’t be anything but charmed by how beautiful everything was, how craftsmen and artists had created everything that surrounded him with such care and ability and creativity…

“…are several thousand tons of Pierce steel in this very ship.”

Steve flinched, recognizing the voice. He turned, too abruptly for the taste of a middle aged woman who gave him an unimpressed look as she walked past, and spotted Alexander Pierce walking down the staircase with a spindly woman with blond hair and the expression of someone who would have preferred to be anywhere else in the world.

“Which part, Mr. Pierce?”

“All the right ones, of course.”

“Then we’ll know who to hold accountable if there’s a problem.”

Steve pretended to cough to mask his laughter. Whoever she was, she was a hell of a woman. He straightened his back, quickly glancing around to imitate the effortlessly put together attitude of the men around him, smiled tightly when they walked past him and nodded curtly when Pierce acknowledged him – one gentleman to the other – without recognizing him. He didn’t know if he should feel amused or outraged. He was yet to decide, when his mind went completely blank.

Bucky was at the top of the staircase.

When Steve had just arrived in Paris the first job he ever took – together with the loading and unloading of cargo on the Seine – had been drawing advertisements for a tailor shop. It wasn’t high end, of course, and it paid less than a dime, but he enjoyed it and allowed him to spend time with a pencil in his hand without feeling guilty of wasting it. He had sketched beautiful models – both sexes – wearing perfectly respectable outfits. They were all extremely good at their job and extremely attractive but nothing, nothing in the world could have ever prepared him for what he had in front of him in that moment.

Bucky kept himself with effortless grace. His white tie didn’t look so different from Steve’s, from the pearl studs to the silver cufflinks. Or, well, Steve’s were silver, Bucky’s were probably platinum or white gold, if he was feeling cheap. But that was not the point. Bucky looked… he looked like himself. Like Lord James Buchanan Barnes, Earl Wintar, with his estate, his lands and his tenants and his shiny golden prison. His dark hair was swept back with pomade, his sharp cheekbones and strong jaw giving a masculine turn to his almost boyish features. His eyes were a deep blue, severe and lofty until they met Steve’s.

And then, they crinkled at the corners.

Bucky was smiling, a private, special smile and Steve felt his heart skip a beat as a grin blossomed on his own face.

“M’lord,” he whispered, teasingly, when Bucky stopped on the last step, taller than Steve by a couple inches and using it to look down to him with a smirk on his handsome face.

“Mr. Rogers. You came.”

Steve shrugged. “You invited me.”

Bucky’s grin widened.

“James?”

They both turned towards the voice and Steve stiffened.

“Alexander,” Bucky stepped forward.

Pierce raised his eyebrows, an incredulous expression making its way on his stark features. “Mr. Rogers,” he said. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” his mouth twisted in a considering frown.

Steve felt Bucky tense beside him and curled his fingers ever so slightly, brushing his knuckles against Bucky’s in what he hoped was an inconspicuous way. He smiled, all sharp angles. “Almost,” he answered, ice-cold.

The merry reunion was shattered into pieces by Howard Stark, who caught all the attention of Pierce when he appeared in all his boisterous glory atop of the staircase. The elegant woman with blond hair eyed him with something between fondness and exasperation. Stark indulged Pierce long enough for her to slip a delicate hand in the cleft of his elbow, and then proceeded to throw smiles right and left and they walked down yet another staircase, towards the dining room. Bucky and Steve walked side by side, Steve becoming increasingly suspicious that his weak heart would give up if Bucky kept brushing his knuckles against the back of his hand every step they took.

“There’s the Countess of Rothes,” he whispered, when they reached the bottom of the stairs. “And that’s John Jacob Astor… the richest man on the ship – even if Stark would beg to differ. His wife there, Madeleine, is my youngest sister’s age and in a delicate condition,” Bucky paused to gift Lady Astor with a dashing smile and she blushed, turning back to her much older husband. Steve felt his stomach churn. “And over there, that poor woman Stark is pursuing, that’s Lady Maria Carbonell. She designs naughty lingerie, among her many talents. Very popular with the royals.”

Steve tried very hard to concentrate, but Bucky pressed his palm against the small of his back, pivoting smoothly to show him around. They walked past several well-dressed people and every time Bucky stopped for a word or two.

“That’s Benjamin Guggenheim with his mistress, Madame Aubert.”

Steve blinked. He had no idea who that was supposed to be, but Bucky seemed to have a lot of fun. “You are really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Bucky’s chuckle, so close to his ear his breath caressed his neck, sent shivers down Steve’s spine. “Mrs. Guggenheim is at home with the children, of course.”

“Of course,” he said, maybe too stiffly.

“Relax, Steve,” he said, soft and slightly melancholic. “This is my only amusing pastime.”

Steve wondered how he could relax when Bucky was this close.

“Oh, and that one is Hank Pym with his wife, Janet,” he resumed his light tone. “I am shocked that he and Stark are in the same room and the ship has not yet imploded. Old Pym hates Stark.”

Steve let out a shaky breath and tried to get in the game. “I wonder why, since Stark has such a lovable personality.”

Bucky chuffed out a laugh and wiggled his fingers when Pym turned towards them. He just nodded, stiffly, one eyebrow raised. “Pym knows I have been friendly with Stark, so I fear we will never be mates. He says Stark stole his formula for animatronics.”

“James Barnes, I cannot believe we have not had luncheon or supper together yet.”

Bucky twirled on his heels and Steve mourned the loss of his palm against his back. “J.J., Madeleine,” he greeted, all politeness, charmingly bowing to kiss Lady Astor’s hand.

Steve made a mental note of the way Bucky’s fingers effortlessly slid beneath Lady Astor’s, his lips just stopping to brush against the diamond on her finger that looked as if, with its worth alone, could pay the rent of every single citizen in Brooklyn.

“I would like you to meet Mr. Steven Rogers,” Bucky said, once he had made Madeline Astor take the color of her own ruby red dress.

Lord Astor’s mustache quivered with curiosity. “Good to meet you, Steven. Are you of the Standard Oil Rogers?”

Steve plastered an innocent smile on his face. “More of the Brooklyn Hospital Center Rogers.”

Bucky hid a laughter in a cough and grabbed Steve by his elbow, guiding him towards their table and leaving back a very puzzled Lord Astor.

“You know,” Steve whispered to Bucky as they sat. “Now I understand why you like it.”

“Enjoying yourself, Rogers?” Stark fell in a very ungraceful way in the chair at Steve’s right.

“I’m peachy, Stark, thank you for asking,” Steve grinned and Bucky pressed his foot against Steve’s under the table.

“Remember Steve,” Stark said, conspiratorially, an elbow planted on the table, messing up the carefully placed cutlery, and his index finger tapping his nose. “The only thing they respect is money. So just pretend like you own a gold mine and you’re in the club.”

Steve pressed back against Bucky. “Is that how you made it?”

Stark’s smile only widened. “I like this one, Barnes. Where did you find him again?”

Bucky only leaned back against his chair and Steve couldn’t help but admire the soft curve of his neck stretching back. He knew he was in a beautiful dining room, all white and paneled with the finest woodwork, fresh red roses on every table, about to dine in ceramic dishes in which nobody had dined before, about to drink in crystal glasses, but he didn’t seem able to see anything else but Bucky.

“Didn’t you hear, Stark? Mr. Rogers here is a brand-new captain of industry,” he winked. “New money, alas, but what can you do?”

“Still a member of the club,” Stark wiggled his eyebrows.

“Well, wouldn’t you know, Howard?” Steve asked, all candor, and Bucky laughed.

The easy atmosphere, though, could not last. When Pierce reached the table, Bucky lost half of his shine. He was still charming and polite and utterly aware of the fact that he had all the ladies – and most of the men – wrapped up around his little finger, but Steve had seen Bucky smile, a real smile that crinkled his eyes and gave him dimples and that wasn’t it. Pierce’s presence was like a looming bad omen over his shoulder, a reminder of the situation he was in. And Steve couldn’t understand why Bucky had ended up in that situation at all. Bucky could marry anyone he wanted. He had such an easy charm, a smile that could bring even the most heartless soul to their knees, so why did he end up stuck in a deal with that man? _He was my father’s partner_. But how much did Bucky know him for real?

He was so entangled in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice when Pierce turned to him.

“Tell us of accommodations in steerage, Mr. Rogers. I hear they’re quite good on this ship.”

Suddenly, all eyes were on him. Bucky went so still that Steve wished he could squeeze his knee to reassure him. _I got this._

Steve was used to bullies. He had fought bullies his whole life. And yes, most of the time he _literally_ fought them, even when he was skin and bones, but he could work with words too. France had thought him that.

“The best I’ve seen,” he paused. “Hardly any rats.”

A slow buzz of whispers and furtive, nervous laughter ran through the table. Steve wondered if they were feeling particularly risky and liberal, having a peasant over for dinner. Or maybe, they were just asking themselves if calling security would cause too big of a scandal.

“It turns out Mr. Rogers is quite a fine artist,” Bucky said, taking a sip of champagne from his glass, then lifted his napkin, tilting his head to signal Steve to do the same and take it off the table.

Steve complied and was about to thank Bucky when Pierce spoke again. “Oh yes? A bohemian?”

“A bohemian?” Guggenheim repeated as if it were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

“I wonder what you mean by that, Mr. Pierce,” Steve said, slowly.

“We all know what he means by that,” chuckled Astor, on the other side of the table.

“Well, few permanent ties, adventurer, vagabond, promiscuous life.”

Bucky grasped his glass so hard Steve was afraid it would break.

“Alexander,” he warned, sharply.

“What?” he asked, feigning bewilderment.

“I believe I fit your description, Mr. Pierce,” Steve said, causing another series of astonished looks and chuckles filled with unease. “I am an orphan; I am not married, and I do not have a permanent address.”

The moment was so tense that the swift movement of the automaton behind him made Steve jump in his chair as a silver tray wiggled its way between him and Bucky. “How do you take your caviar. Sir.” the automatic voice articulated.

“Just a soupcon of lemon,” Pierce winked at him. “It improves the flavor with champa– ”

“I never did like caviar much,” Steve cut him out, sharply.

Stark motioned the waiter to come near and the automaton obliged. “I really have to work on your pronunciation, lad,” Stark mumbled, then winked towards Lady Carbonell. “I would tip fifty quid if you bring me a bowl of popcorn right now,” he said in a way that was supposed to be inconspicuous, but that ended up being the exact opposite.

Lady Carbonell looked unimpressed. “You are the creator, Howard. You would be tipping yourself,” she deadpanned.

Steve liked her more and more.

“Do you find a rootless existence appealing, Mr. Rogers?” Madeleine Astor chirped and then blushed violently when everyone eyes’ turned towards her and, if Steve were to judge by her husband’s expression, he didn’t like one bit that not only his young wife had the faculty to speak, but had asked such a bold question.

Steve, anger boiling underneath his skin, smiled his most reassuring smile, trying to make her feel less under scrutiny. “I make do, m’lady,” he said. “I came to Europe to bury my mother. I’m from Brooklyn, you see. I wasn’t expecting to stay, but nothing was holding me back yet. So, I started working my way from place to place. As James said, I am an artist and an artist doesn’t need much. Air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. In a way, I love waking up without knowing what’s gonna happen or who I’m gonna meet,” he turned towards Bucky and couldn’t help but smile. “The other night I was sleeping under a bridge in London, and now here I am, on the grandest ship in the world, having champagne with you fine people,” he raised his glass and tried not to die for the need to crawl out of his skin. “I learned the hard way that life is a gift and I don’t intend on wasting it. I try to do some good in the world, I take life as it comes at me.”

Howard clapped his hands noisily. “Well said! Hear, hear! To make each day count,” he raised his glass and everyone imitated him, like a whole flock of sheep.

Steve had no idea how he managed to survive the rest of the dinner without starting a revolution or two. Probably a big part of the merit went to Howard Stark, who kept recounting crazy story after crazy story, blabbering about drunk pigs, lighting fires with a stone and a headless matchstick, and a project he was working on to build the city of the future.

He spent the night trying to remember with precision the curve of Bucky’s smile when he had seen him at the bottom of the staircase, the way his breath had tickled his mouth when he had whispered an elated _You came_. Bucky had invited him because it was the polite thing to do because he was a gentleman, and Steve was very set on the foot of not breaking Pierce’s nose by the end of the night because he didn’t want to put Bucky in a difficult position.

At the same time, Steve was thinking. Bucky had brought him in his world, showing him good sides and, well, mostly bad sides. Now, Steve wanted to do the same. If he and Bucky never saw each other again after they landed in New York, if he couldn’t find out the reason why Bucky was so completely tied to Pierce before they stepped down the Titanic, well Steve wanted to show him what it was like to live his life. Poorer, less fancy, that’s for sure. But fun. Authentic. He wanted to give Bucky something to treasure in his heart.

“Well, join me for a brandy, gentlemen?”

A chorus of chairs moving gave Steve the opportunity to lean in and whisper to Bucky’s ear, as they got up. “Meet me in the steerage common room in an hour.”

Bucky furrowed his brows and opened his mouth to answer, but Steve shook his head and quickly pressed his thumb against Bucky’s wrist, feeling his pulse point flutter like the wings of a butterfly. He let go immediately, and Bucky’s eyes were huge.

“Joining us, Mr. Rogers?” Pierce asked, a possessive hand clutching around Bucky’s left shoulder.

Steve closed his hands into fists, gathering all his self-control. Pierce’s thumb was digging into Bucky’s collarbone and Steve could feel his irritation, his unease. Something clicked in his arm, like plates recalibrating. Steve wondered not for the first time what it looked like under the expensive jacket. “No, thanks,” he said instead. “I’m heading back.”

“Probably best,” Pierce agreed. “It will be all business and politics, that sort of thing. Wouldn’t interest you,” he looked at Bucky. “Barely interests our James.”

Bucky didn’t take the bait, but Steve saw that he was biting at his lower lip so forcefully that he drew blood. Steve wondered if that was how he coped with the constant humiliation. He himself was shaking with rage.

“Good of you to come,” Pierce smiled, all pleasantness, and tightened his hold, guiding Bucky towards the group of men, all busy chattering among each other, moving towards the smoking room.

Bucky didn’t turn.

As he followed Howard Stark’s animatronic valet outside, Steve hoped he got the message.


	8. Something nice is gwine to happy (April 13th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, you know everything about ragtime?” Steve asked, cheekily.  
> Bucky thought about le Café Paris and the London Hippodrome and all the times he had wanted to dance and he had stuck in the back of a smoky room wondering what it would feel like to down his scotch and just have some courage.  
> “I cannot call myself an expert.”  
> “But…?” Steve looked expectant.  
> Bucky laughed, breathy and dizzy, and abandoned himself against the back of the chair. “But, Rogers, that was everything but dancing, it’s not a matter of style of dance. You missed every single attack.”  
> Steve took another sip. “Why don’t you show me?”  
> Bucky stilled. “You want me to show you how to dance.”  
> Steve smirked. “Well, unless it’s the waltz.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter wiiiith amazing art!!! :D
> 
> I just love making them dance.

The Titanic was a labyrinth.

The upper decks sported paneled hallways, which framed staterooms and luxurious smoking rooms, blood-red carpet muffling steps, the soft buzzing of the electric lights. Staircases, small stairways, steps just enough wide to set the foot at a rapid pace, ropes and handrails and banisters. And slowly wood and glass became metal and bolts, all white, painted with precision and attention; carpeted floors left room for tiles and creaking slats. And signs, signs everywhere, pointing towards cabins, lodgings, lounges. It had taken almost an hour, that morning, to find the way to the third-class General Room, enduring the puzzled stares of other passengers, asking for directions to automata which registered him as a first-class passenger and didn’t seem to understand why he wanted to be told how to reach steerage. When they asserted their standard, metallic confusion, Bucky thought that they didn’t look very different from the humans that glowered at him.

That night, the infinite maze of corridors and passageways, the endless series of identical doors one beside the other just felt familiar, right, as if he was supposed to be there, his shiny shoes tapping on the floor in a rapid pace.

_Meet me in the steerage common room in an hour._

Bucky was shaking with the need of getting there, his hands could barely stop trembling when he pushed doors open when he curled his fingers around handles and handgrips. He wanted to get there, he wanted to open the last door and see Steve and just breathe again.

He wanted to talk to him, to lean against him, to go back looking at his drawings, smiling at his smiles. The day he had spent with Steve, it seemed like the life of someone else. His stories, his experiences… Bucky had never heard anything like that. And that was the life of normal people, people who had not been living in an estate in the countryside their whole lives, people who spent their nights under bridges and in slums and their days breathing carbon powder and smog. Steve lived like that. Steve was one of the thousand faces people like Bucky just refused to see. And he was passionate and angry and fiery and as much as Bucky tried to picture him among the people who had killed his father and ruined his family and made a cripple out of him… he couldn’t. Steve was passionate, but he wasn’t a fanatic, he was angry, but he wasn’t cruel, he was fiery, not feral.

And the way he looked at Bucky–

He pushed the last door and the booming sound of what was unmistakably a party hit him like a punch. People of all ages were dancing, drinking beer, wine, playing card games, brawling. And laughter, so much laughter. Belly laughs of big men with boisterous voices; boys and girls cachinnating, arms flung around shaking shoulders; the cackle of poker players dragging small mounds of goods towards themselves; the giggles of girls who had just been asked to dance; the howls and the roars of the friends of a very drunk arm wrestler.

Nobody had noticed him yet, standing in the shadows near the door, his fancy clothes a strong contrast against everybody else’s. His gaze wandered around the room, looking for a familiar bulk. And then he saw him. Steve was dancing – well, wobbling would be a more appropriate definition – a small child balanced on his feet, her little hands cradled in Steve’s bigger ones. She couldn’t be more than three or four and Bucky’s thoughts went back to his little sisters – Martha and more so Judith. He remembered them that young. They had the same bouncing curls as the child, the same dimples on chubby cheeks, Judy even had the same dark eyes.

“It’s a bear!” someone shouted, and the music changed in syncopated ragtime; Steve threw an amused look to one of the musicians, a broad, red mustached Irishman with a bowler hat.

The girl squeaked in delight and raised her hands to be lifted. Steve chuckled and complied, and she snuggled comfortably in the curve of his elbow, making faces and showing her teeth and giggling madly when Steve growled and roared, his free hand curled in a claw-like shape. Bucky covered his mouth to hide a burst of laughter and Steve twirled in a very off-tempo attempt to follow the choreography.

Their eyes locked.

Steve looked stunned. His cheeks flushed even redder than they already were and the embarrassment got worse when Bucky wiggled the fingers of his right hand, saying hi. He babbled something to the child – who appeared to be very annoyed by the fact that her dance partner had just abandoned her in the arms of her quite amused mother – and started crossing the room to reach him.

“You came,” he said, a little breathless, a little smug when he reached him.

Bucky couldn’t prevent himself from smiling. Steve was back in his old clothes, the shine and polish of the evening white tie completely forgotten. His hair was in disarray and a thin layer of sweat made his skin glossy.

“You invited me…” Bucky leaned against one of the metal supports, a self-satisfied grin blossoming on his face. It was strangely easy to mirror Steve’s enthusiasm. “…Vernon Castle.”

Steve laughed and blushed and raised his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, how much did you see?”

Bucky chuckled. “Enough. You are quite the dancer, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve ran a hand through his short hair, messing them up even worse. “That bad, uh?”

Bucky fought stoically against the smile pressing at the corner of his lips and then gave up. “The lady was not complaining, so I guess it was acceptable.”

Steve’s eyes flashed through the room, where the little girl was chatting happily with her mother, a raggedy doll in one hand and her little body bouncing in excitement. “She’s not a strict one,” his expression softened before going back to Bucky. “Come with me, I’ll buy you a beer.”

His hand grabbed Bucky’s left wrist and started ferrying him through the crowd. Bucky resisted the instinct to flinch and yank his fake arm away. If Steve wasn’t bothered by it, Bucky wouldn’t be. He could do it. He could go with the flow, relax, trying not to overthink stuff. It was just a flight. It was just for that crazy crossing. It was just four days and then he would go back on track. No Steve Rogers to save him anymore. He would not keep up with the nonsense. He wasn’t… He swallowed the lump in his throat, looking down at Steve’s fingers carelessly curled around cables and pipes and metal. What if he could have this? Wouldn’t it be wonderful? What if he could have Steve’s smile and his honest words and his reckless courage? What if Steve could show him that there was nothing wrong with him? Steve didn’t care about his arm, or his money, or his name. Steve wasn’t– he wasn’t bothered, he didn’t even blink, feeling just metal and hoses under his touch; he kept dragging him, a smile on his lips, a slight furrow between his eyebrows as if he needed to focus to find the counter in the utter mess the room was in.

Before he could realize what was happening – and stick his own head out of the gutter, as the man in front of him would have probably said if Bucky had ever voiced out his thoughts – Bucky ended up with a pint of dark, foamy beer in front of him and Steve Rogers pressed against one side, sharing a ridiculously tiny stool.

“So,” Steve said. “Vernon Castle, eh? And how do you happen to know Vernon Castle? How scandalous,” he hid a smile in a sip of beer.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You are not the only one who has been to Paris. Summer 1911 was a roaring season.”

Steve chuckled and when he lowered his pint, a mustache of foam covered most of his upper lip. The prepotent desire to wipe it off with a kiss ran through Bucky like lightning, making him shiver from head to toe.

He knew it was wrong – or better, not wrong, just… _superannuated_. It was fine indulging in desires among peers in the moonlit darkness of dormitories and lazy parlors. It was natural and appropriate to a certain moment in life. Youth, with its thoughtlessness and carelessness. But Bucky was a man, now, he was the head of his household, he was Lord of Macktyre Hall. There was no time for the silly weaknesses of adolescence. He was no Oscar Wilde, with his trial for gross indecency and his love that dare not speak its name. It was just… it was just a stupid divertissement. Or so he kept telling himself. Just a secret meeting here and a summer fling there and nothing true, nothing… no _sodomy_ or whatever they called it these days.

And yet.

And yet Bucky knew – Bucky knew that he wanted to kiss Steve, that his skin tingled and his breath hitched and his heart pumped blood quicker when he caught a glimpse of Steve’s muscles underneath his threadbare shirt when he ran a hand through sweaty blond hair when his strong, manly jaw relaxed in a smile. It had happened before – that kind of reckless attraction, but never so intense, never so searing. Never so fast. Steve was trouble. And Bucky was attracted to him like an insect to light.

He was going to burn himself if he didn’t pay attention.

Steve wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, smiling cheekily as to challenge him to say something for the improper gesture and Bucky knew he was already too far gone to avoid it anyway.

“So, you know everything about ragtime?” Steve asked, cheekily.

Bucky thought about le Café Paris and the London Hippodrome and all the times he had wanted to dance and he had stuck in the back of a smoky room wondering what it would feel like to down his scotch and just have some courage.

“I cannot call myself an expert.”

“But…?” Steve looked expectant.

Bucky laughed, breathy and dizzy, and abandoned himself against the back of the chair. “But, Rogers, that was everything but dancing, it’s not a matter of style of dance. You missed every single attack.”

Steve took another sip. “Why don’t you show me?”

Bucky stilled. “You want me to show you how to dance.”

Steve smirked. “Well, unless it’s the waltz.”

Bucky looked up, his eyes quickly scanning the room. There were no rules; the music played by the band was boisterous and lively – they were a cheerful bunch, clothes black with soot and cheeks red with beer. People just… moved, hands entangled and smiles everywhere. There were people– There were people with mechanical limbs and appendages and nobody seemed to care. Nobody seemed to notice. As nobody seemed to be bothered by the fact that the dancing didn’t stick to the usual roles. Everybody jumped up and down without thinking much of it.

Bucky licked his mouth and took in a deep breath. “I can’t believe you are making me do this,” he declared to Steve’s utter delight and proceeded to untie his ascot, abandoning it on the table, together with his collar and the rigid cuffs at his wrists. He regretted not going back to his room to change before rushing below deck.

“Consider it charity work,” Steve finished his beer and smacked his lips. “It’s what you do, right?”

Bucky couldn’t believe how difficult it was not to smile. “You have no idea, mate,” he declared, and finally took off the white glove covering his mechanical hand and offered it palm up to Steve, eyes decidedly pointed up.

Steve looked at it, solemnly, an undecipherable expression coloring his beautiful features. For an illogical, awful moment, Bucky feared that he would reject him. But he didn’t. Steve slipped his hand in Bucky’s, flash against metal, real, human warmth against plates and copper nerves and pipes. Steve’s fingers curled naturally around Bucky’s and he and allowed him to guide him into the fray, where everybody was dancing and bouncing and jumping and pushing in every direction.

“Dugan!” Steve shouted. “A grizzly, please! I’m taking lessons here!”

Bucky looked at him with wide eyes, feeling his cheeks flush, and Steve raised his eyebrows as to say _What?_

The man called Dugan was the burly one with the mustache. He looked at them from head to toe and seem to decide he was too drunk to care. Honestly, most people looked too wasted to care. “About damn time, Rogers!” he answered and didn’t hesitate to cup his hands at the side of his mouth before yelling. “It’s a bear!”

People around them mock gasped and raised their arms in the air, pretending to imitate the clumsy movements of a huge grizzly bear as the piano started to play an up-tempo beat. The pianist – an Asian-American man with a sharp smile and a thin mustache – started singing and Bucky rolled his eyes and went along with it, the tailored fabric of his suit tugging against his back and elbows.

> _Out in San Francisco where the weather’s fair,_
> 
> _They have a dance out there,_
> 
> _They call the grizzly bear,_
> 
> _All your other lovin’ dances don’t compare_
> 
> _Not so coony, but a little more than spoony._

“You already look like John Jarrott, m’lord,” Steve teased, and Bucky didn’t know if he wanted to punch him or kiss him.

“That would make you Louise Gruenning?” he shot back, before starting to move nonsensically around the room, feeling like the most idiot person on the face of the earth but, at the same time, enjoying the thrilling sensation of doing whatever the hell was going through his mind and, God, if that was waving his hands in the hair and making faces at small children to make them laugh, let it be it.

> _Talk about yo’ bears that Teddy Roosevelt shot,_
> 
> _They couldn’t class with what… old San Francisco’s got;_
> 
> _Listen, my honey, do, and I will show to you the dance of the grizzly bear._

He could feel Steve’s back against his own, the warmth radiating from it like a furnace; he twirled and stomped his foot on the ground at the right time and suddenly his right arm was around Steve, his hand not touching him; his left was awkwardly bent mid-air and Steve leaned heavily with his on it, while the other locked where Bucky’s neck met his shoulder, sweaty and heavy and real, elbow pressing against his clavicle.

“I don’t know,” Steve said, the corners of his lips upturned, his cheek squished against Bucky’s; his sweaty bangs sticking to his own beaded skin. “I don’t think I’m as good as Miss Gruenning.”

> _Hug up close… to your baby,_
> 
> _Throw your shoulders t’ward the ceiling,_
> 
> _Lawdy, lawdy what a feelin’,_
> 
> _Snug up close to your lady,_

Bucky laughed at the ridiculous words of the song, his mouth brushing against the soft skin behind Steve’s ear. He pressed his lips between his teeth and a rush of adrenaline ran through him when he realized he was tasting Steve’s skin. It was salty and something sourer and smokier – soot and sulfur and coal. Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, inhaling deeply – sweat and musk and man.

> _Close your eyes and do some nappin’,_
> 
> _Something nice is gwine to happy,_
> 
> _Hug up close… to your baby,_
> 
> _Sway me everywhere;_

A heavy step to the side and the upper part of their bodies was bending first left, then right, bouncing and bumping against other people, all of them dancing their own personal version of the ridiculous grizzly bear dance. The only common characteristic, Bucky decided, his body shook by a series of uncontrollable, frantic giggles, was that it was as decidedly ungraceful and undignified as possible.

> _Show your darling beau, just how you go to Buffalo,_
> 
> _Doing the grizzly bear. Bear._

  


  


The tune ended in a mad rush and every single one of the presents exploded in wholehearted applause directed to the band. Bucky made sure to clap his hands enthusiastically, ignoring with purpose the unnatural sound that metal and flash produced when colliding. When he turned towards Steve, he was looking at him with something resembling fondness and when Bucky frowned, he just shook his head and proceeded to guide him towards the counter in the corner with a hand on the small of his back.

Another huge beer slid smoothly in front of him and Bucky chugged down a good half of it in one sip. God, he was thirsty. When he slammed down the pint, the mustached musician had appeared beside Steve and both of them were looking at him with something between awe and respect.

“What?” Bucky asked, and his northern accent drooled everywhere. “You think a first-class lad can’t drink?”

Dugan exploded in a burst of booming laughter. “Timothy Dugan!” he reached out with a hand that was as big as Bucky’s head. “But everyone calls me Dum Dum.”

“Wonder why!” exclaimed the short, Asian-American man who had played and sung, sneaking on the side and sitting across Bucky. “Jim Morita.”

If Dugan’s accent was definitely Irish – from the North-West, if Bucky’s wasn’t wrong – Jim Morita was as Western American as it gets. Bucky shook his hand with a smile. “Bucky Barnes,” he said, and it came so naturally – no title, no complete name, no stupid conventions – that he surprised himself. He spared a quick look to the rest of the band – a couple of them were still playing, a short man with a black mustache and a couple of day scruff was sitting at the piano, now, singing a quite colorful French popular song.

“So, Bucky,” Dugan turned a chair around and sat on it, legs wide. “Since you are first-class, maybe you can tell us who is the skirt who turned Rogers’ head.”

Steve choked in his beer, spluttering everywhere. Bucky fished his handkerchief from a pocket and handed it to him without even thinking. Steve hesitated, chest still shaken by small coughs, and then picked it delicately between pointer and middle finger, almost reverently, as if he was afraid to ruin it. Bucky tried not to think about the fact that it was probably the first time he saw Belgian lace in his life and that probably Bucky’s handkerchief was worth more than all his clothes put together.

“A skirt,” Bucky parroted, running a finger on the hem of his glass.

“Yes,” Dum Dum went on, a snicker on his lips. “A first-class lass caught his eye. He sketched her,” he paused, considering, then looked at Morita. “You reckon she’s Barnes’ sister?” he asked as if Bucky and Steve weren’t even there. 

“She’s not,” Steve cut in. “She’s no one, I have not met anybody,” he fumbled, all pink.

Bucky took another sip of beer, hiding a smile. He should probably feel terrified, disgusted, horrified. Steve had not met anybody else except him; he had spent all his time with him. He had saved his life. And his friends thought he had a thing with a lady in first class, he had sketched someone. Bucky tried to picture Steve’s thick fingers smudging graphite on a paper sheet, Bucky’s features only drafted. And he felt thrilled. He felt breathless, shaken from head to toe, ecstatic. He wanted to throw himself into this, he wanted to forget everything else and just feel, feel, feel. He pressed the side of his leg against Steve’s under the table. He flinched and Bucky suppressed a giggle in another sip.

“I’m not sure,” Bucky said, teasingly. “I for sure saw a lot of sketches.”

Dum Dum looked as if someone who had just discovered Christmas had arrived six months before. “So more than one lass?!”

“Rogers, you dog!” Morita cackled.

“Bucky!” Steve glared at him. “That’s not… he saw old sketches! There’s nobody, I…”

But Dugan and Morita were having a jolly good time mocking and grilling Steve and Bucky couldn’t help but baiting them every now and then. At a certain point – after the fifth or seventh beer – Bucky ended up cheering one or the other in an arm-wrestling match and when they forced him to compete against Steve, everything ended up in a cackling mess and neither of them actually managed to do anything more than losing the grasp because of sweaty hands.

No one said a word about his arm – Dugan actually threw himself in a quite implausible recount on how he had escaped death in the Caribbean because of the mercy of a lady pirate with prostheses on both her arms and legs. And a glass eye. Morita had nodded along with surprisingly accurate regularity, so Bucky had decided that the best course of action was not asking questions. He had no idea if Dugan was making everything up or if there was even an ounce of truth in what he was saying, but he appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

At some point, the three members of the band that had stayed behind joined them and Bucky made his acquaintances with Gabe Jones, Jacques Dernier, and James Falsworth and he found out that they were all employed on the Titanic and that Steve was supposed to be in the boiler rooms with them, instead of in an unusually comfortable cabin as a passenger. Before he could explain why, though, a plump middle-aged woman managed to drag them all in a traditional group dance, and so Bucky ended up being dragged around, twirling and twisting smiling girls who kept changing, kept giggling, kept coming back. His eyes, though, only looked for that awfully untalented schmuck who had pushed him in the crowd with a little wave.

Bucky Barnes was intoxicated and wound up and _happy_.

“I’m takin’ ya back.”

“What?”

Giggles.

“I am taking y-you back, James Buc– Buckan– Bucky. Bucky, don’t laugh, I’m taking you back.”

The sky was enormous.

The air was freezing.

And that was good, that was good, it was supposed to sober him up. His breath came out of his mouth in small puffs of condensation. He had lost his jacket. And the collar, the cuffs, the tie. He didn’t particularly care.

Bucky blinked, slowly, and finally realized they had been stumbling along the D-Deck, on the way to first class. There were automata stationed near every entrance. Bucky wondered how many Stark had built for this ship alone. But no, that was incorrect, wasn’t it? Stark had not built anything. Stark had just had the ideas, and then men like Steve, men like his friends – all colors and ethnicities and provenances – had slaved in his factories and in his construction sites and they had made all of that, they had made it true. The airship, the Titanic, everything. And they kept making it work, as Stark sipped champagne, throwing shovel after shovel of coal in enormous furnaces, risking their life, ruining their lungs, their life span shorter and shorter every minute. And nobody gave them any credit. And nobody ever wondered why sometimes some fringes just lost their heads and sieged country estates and threw bombs and killed fathers and maimed sons and ruined families. Nobody gave them champagne and nobody fawned over them or flattered them – maybe if they did, maybe if they just treated them like human beings a lot of horrible things would not happen. But no. _Au contraire_.

Bucky felt angry. And sad. And powerless. He leaned against the rail.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Steve murmured and when Bucky turned towards him, he was closer than he expected. When he breathed out, his condensed breath caressed Bucky’s cheek.

“We are so small,” Bucky lied quietly, and looked up, the Milky Way crossing the night sky like a bridge through the stars.

“Philosophically or physically?”

Bucky grinned, some of the toned-down giddiness coming back.

“Definitely not physically,” he said, feeling a little bit forward.

He heard Steve choke a peal of laughter, his eyes still trying to find something there, amongst those small, shiny dots. And suddenly, something flashed in the sky, faster than lightning.

“Shooting star,” he whispered, then lowered his gaze, and Steve was there, beside him, his elbows leaning against the railing, his arm pressed against Bucky’s arm, his crooked nose red and close, so, so close.

Those blue eyes.

“You should wish on it,” Steve mumbled. “What would you wish for?”

And lips, red and chapped and full.

Bucky leaned in, his eyelids suddenly too heavy. He didn’t have to wish, he wanted, he wanted, he wanted…

A door slammed open.

Steve flinched and Bucky recoiled so violently he bumped his head against one of the support steel ropes. That hurt. His hand run to the back of his head, poking at it with care. Sore, no scratches. Steve, in front of him, seemed shell shocked, his chest heaving up and down, his fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose. When he looked up, all confused and red-cheeked, teeth nibbling at his lower lip, Bucky smiled, sad and fond.

“Something I can’t have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isn't Kay's art amazing??? Steve and Bucky dancing the grizzly bear! *-* This is awesome *-*!
> 
> Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers and dance teachers who appeared on Broadway and in silent films in the early 20th century. They promoted foxtrot, ragtime, jazz rhythms and African-American music for dance.
> 
> Ragtime was considered very scandalous at the beginning of the 20th century.
> 
> The Grizzly Bear is a hilarious dancing style from the beginning of the 20th century. You can see a video [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAw4BOz-J1o).
> 
> John Jarrott and Louise Gruenning are two dancers who allegedly introduced the Grizzly Bear and other similarly ridiculous dances like the Turkey Trot in Chicago in 1909.
> 
> Le Café de Paris was a very popular dancing spot in Paris in the 1910s where Vernon and Irene Castle performed. The London Hippodrome was its equivalent in London.
> 
> The song quoted is "Grizzly Bear (The Dance of the Grizzly Bear)". Absolutely charming. You can hear a version of it [ here](http://ragpiano.com/lyrics/lygrizzl.htm).


	9. The appropriate number (April 14th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are no picnic, Buck,” he finally said, laughter coming out nervously as he faced Bucky’s incredulous expression. “Hell, you are a whole deal of trouble.”
> 
> Bucky crossed his arms defensively, one eyebrow up. “You are going to smother me in compliments some more?”
> 
> “Shut up, jeez,” Steve pressed his lips. “Let me try to get this out. What I’m trying to say, what I’m trying to say is that you are strong,” Bucky visibly flinched. “You have a strong, pure heart. And you are the most amazing, astounding, infuriating man I have ever met. I know this,” he waved his hands vaguely. “I know this cannot be. I am not an idiot, I know how the world works. I know. But I'm involved now. You jump, I jump, remember? I can't turn away without knowin' you're going to be alright. I am in your corner, pal, till the end of the line.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back with today's first chapter. I hope everyone is safe and sound.
> 
> Cameos by: Scott and Cassie Lang, Calvin Chadwick, Maria Carbonell.
> 
> Watch out for some language (explicit ableism and homophobia).

Day 5 – April 14th, 1912

Bucky felt as if he were immersed in cotton wool.

His head hurt.

His legs were sore and the morning calisthenics felt insurmountable, as he stretched and unlocked his muscles, the bright sun warming up his skin. It was a beautiful day, outside, no clouds to speak of and the air was less humid than usual. Bucky pressed his forehead against his knees, the tip of his fingers touching his bare toes. Between his own thighs, he could see the shape of an already made table, Alexander’s automaton standing motionless on one side, an untouched towel was thrown over its bent arm. There was orange juice, served in thin long glasses, and tea with scones and a considerable assortment of jams and marmalades. On a portable table, a series of covered trays and serving dishes hid an enviable collection of hot dishes – eggs, probably, maybe sausages. Bucky closed his eyes, trying to regulate his breath.

His head hurt like hell.

His head hurt like hell and he could feel the slight dizziness that came to the blood rushing up to it. He rose, slowly. He had to go back inside and change for breakfast: clean up, shave. The hardwood of the promenade floor was warm with sunlight under his bare feet. He put on his slippers and recovered a towel, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Normally, gymnastics in the morning helped him clear his head. Today, though, the consequences of his little trip below deck heaved on him, making him feel ancient.

“Oh, forgive me, I thought you already had breakfast,”

Bucky’s heart missed a beat, taken by surprise. He turned towards the door and attempted a smile that came out more like a frown. He didn’t miss how Rumlow’s eyes lingered on his exposed metal arm and he hoped his blush didn’t show too much on his already flushed skin.

“I overslept,” Bucky said, automatically.

Rumlow walked to the table and pushed back the chair and the screeching sound made Bucky flinch and his head pulse in discomfort. Then, as if it was completely normal that an employee had breakfast with the employer’s partner, he sat.

“I am not surprised,” he said, conversationally, and reached out for the pressed newspaper. Mark VIII handed it to him without a sound. “After your below deck shenanigans.”

Bucky stiffened, his fingers tightening around the soft sponge of the towel. He felt exposed, caught off guard and the gears in his arm shifted uncomfortably. Rumlow’s mouth twitched in barely covered distaste.

“Did you follow me?” he asked, tight-lipped.

Rumlow raised his eyes from the newspaper – they were black as coal, soulless like their owner. “You will never behave like that again,” he growled. “Do you understand?”

Bucky was shaking with rage. He felt it roaring inside his chest, waves of humiliation and anger clenching his stomach and making his temples pulse and the nervous termination in his shoulder making the copper and the gold in his arm almost sparkle like exposed cables.

“If you think you can tell me what to do…”

“Oh, but I can.” Brock was clutching the newspaper so tight that the pages tore. “The only thing you are worth is the name you have. You have no money, you have no friends and you are a cripple. But your name, that opens doors, _Lord Wintar_ – he spat it out like an insult – India and Canada and _Stark_ who, for some reason, likes you, and Mr. Pierce wants to make sure you remember what’s at stake. He will open doors with your name. So you will come to Philadelphia and you will put that stone on his daughter’s neck and her dowry will indeed save your flock of sisters the burden of becoming seamstresses in some disgusting dump in Northern England,” he got up and walked towards Bucky with a strange smile on his face and Bucky stood his ground, chin up and feet planted and fists curled.

Brock grabbed his chin. “You know what? The youngin is almost as pretty as you, maybe I will marry her and save myself the trouble of dealing with you.”

Bucky jerked back, blind anger running through him, but Brock’s hold didn’t falter.

“You will keep your hand of the bargain and Mr. Pierce won’t be made out a fool. Or I will personally go to the police and have you hung for gross indecency, and your family dragged in the dust. No happy parties with steerage scum, no sneaking out to bend for mechanics and artists. Which is quite ironic, seeing how your dear father died and you lost your arm and your house. But to each their own. If I see you again with that Rogers, Mr. Pierce will have him thrown into jail as soon as we set foot in New York. Have I made myself clear?”

Bucky pushed him back with both hands and Rumlow hit the table, the thin crystal tingling, and wobbling and then crashing on the ground in a blaze of shards. Brock stumbled and his hand crashed against a ceramic dish, a gash opening on his palm.

“I know Alexander,” he uttered, dark and frenzied, fury running through his veins. “And he knows me. You are nothing but a brute and have no power whatsoever. You threaten my sisters once more time and I swear to God, Rumlow, I will kill you. No jail and no ruin will ever prevent me from completely obliterating you from the face of the Earth.”

Bucky didn’t wait for an answer, he turned on his heels and stormed off the promenade, his shoulder burning where his skin met metal, the connections hot and overworked. He slammed the bathroom door closed and leaned heavily against the washbasin. He closed his eyes, allowing the world to stop spinning around him. He took a deep breath, then another, then a third. His ears were still whistling madly. When the pounding in his chest started to slow down, he opened his eyes.

He didn’t know why Alexander kept that man around. He didn’t know if he had something on them if he was just reliable muscle. He inhaled deeply. He would not give him the satisfaction of running to Alexander like a child to his mother. He could take care of himself. And, deep down, Bucky knew that what he had done was wrong. He knew that he couldn’t afford any misstep. He knew that he could not have Steve and that he could not step back from his duties and that Alexander’s help was his only chance at saving his name and his family. Bucky’s hands were always going to be tied. He slammed a fist against the wall, enjoying the sore numbness of pain for fleeting instants. He thought about Steve and his smile and the way he had felt dancing with him and laughing with his friends and pressing his lips against his neck. He thought of his mother, strong and resilient in her mourning. He thought about his sisters, oblivious and unaware in a crumbling estate, trusting that their brother was going to do his job and protect them, assuring their future.

He had no choice. He had never had any choice.

On the left terrace of the A-deck a man was instructing his daughter how to give the perfect spin to her top. He was crouching, his hands making complicated motions in the air as the kid leaned in, hanging from her da’s lips. Steve lingered, his palms pressing against the railing he was about to climb, the muscles of his arms taut and bulging under his shirt and thin jacket, the tip of his old boots brushing the hardwood floor. He smiled and heaved himself up, landing on the other side with a soft thud and at the same time the girl spun his spring and the top hit the ground with a satisfying buzz. Steve walked quietly behind them, then looked left and right for automata and when he made sure that not a single one was near, he leaned in and grabbed the hat and coat abandoned on a reclining chair.

He hurried away, putting on the bowler hat at a jaunty angle – in the same way he had seen Dugan do when he didn’t want to be particularly conspicuous – and slipped into the coat. It was a bit small and he distinctly felt the moment a couple of stitches gave in on the back. For a short, crazy moment he wished he could be small again. He walked past a series of lifeboats, their bulky shape providing good hiding spots every time someone looked at him sideways. If his calculations were right, Bucky was probably getting out of mass at that point. The mere thought made his heart beat faster. He wanted to see him, he wanted to talk to him about what had almost happened the night before. He had spent hours looking at the ceiling, listening to the Swedish friends of Thor Odinson snoring, thinking about that missed kiss, about Bucky’s sad expression when he had left him.

And, God, Steve knew he couldn’t give anything to Bucky, he couldn’t give him what that Pierce could – stability, money for his household, for his property. He knew that if someone found out about them, they could end up in jail or worse but… But Steve had never felt anything like what he was feeling for Bucky. He had never looked at someone and thought he would throw himself out of an airship for them. He had never felt his heart beating so fast every time he looked at them or every time he managed to make them smile – the crinkles at the corner of his dark blue eyes. And Bucky – God Bucky made him feel like he could do anything. Anything.

He had to see him, he had to talk to him, and he had to make sure he knew. He had to make sure Bucky could choose, even if Steve wasn’t much of a choice at all. And he wanted Bucky to understand, he wanted him to know that it didn’t have to be between Beatrice Pierce and Steve, he just wanted to make sure that Bucky knew that he had a choice at all. That he could tell Alexander Pierce to screw himself and find another way. There must be another way that didn’t involve that piece of shit.

He stopped near one of the exits of the dining salon, where the service was held – he had heard someone saying so the night before – and leaned against one of the lifeboats, throwing glances once in a while.

He didn’t have to wait long, his cigarette not even half-smoked.

He waited for Pierce to walk past first, his henchman a step behind and Captain Chadwick by his side; then Stark and Lady Carbonell, with an ignored Stane close by, and finally– Steve tapped Bucky on a shoulder, then grabbed his elbow, pushing him inside a room. The gymnasium was empty and Steve shut the door quickly, leaning against it when he noticed there wasn’t a key. One makes do.

“I can’t be here, Steve,” Bucky said, crossing his arms and stepping in the shadow to avoid being seen through the window.

“Well, I’m happy to see you too, Buck,” Steve tried to take the edge off.

Bucky blinked quickly, his teeth nibbling at his lower lip. “I can’t see you. I am sorry. It was a… I had a lovely time yesterday, but I cannot see you anymore.”

Steve felt all the giddiness abandon his body. He wasn’t expecting that. It wasn’t like the moment in which Bucky had shut him off after Steve had asked him if he thought he could love his future wife, but it came pretty close.

“About yesterday– ” he tried.

“No,” Bucky stepped forward and raised his arms in an aborted attempt of getting to the door without touching him. “That was inappropriate. Borderline illegal. I apologize for my behavior if not during the dance, certainly on the deck.”

Steve sighed, restlessness and annoyance making his hair stand up. “Bucky, come on. You know perfectly well there were two of us there. We both wanted that.”

“No,” Bucky said again and he sounded frustrated, almost angry. “I am engaged,” he spat it out like a bad word. “And I have responsibilities. And I cannot… I cannot…”

“Listen to me,” Steve took off his ridiculous hat and threw it aside, a hand running through his hair, pushing back his bangs. Bucky followed the curve of the bowler hat, which ended up on a piece of strange machinery. “Hey, look at me, Bucky– ”

_Use your words, Rogers._

“You are no picnic, Buck,” he finally said, laughter coming out nervously as he faced Bucky’s incredulous expression. “Hell, you are a whole deal of trouble.”

Bucky crossed his arms defensively, one eyebrow up. “You are going to smother me in compliments some more?”

“Shut up, jeez,” Steve pressed his lips. “Let me try to get this out. What I’m trying to say, what I’m trying to say is that you are _strong_ ,” Bucky visibly flinched. “You have a strong, pure heart. And you are the most amazing, astounding, infuriating man I have ever met. I know this,” he waved his hands vaguely. “I know this cannot be. I am not an idiot, I know how the world works. I know. But I'm involved now. You jump, I jump, remember? I can't turn away without knowin' you're going to be alright. I am in your corner, pal, till the end of the line.”

Bucky took in a sharp intake of breath, eyelids blinking rapidly, big blue eyes doing their best to avoid looking at Steve, making him notice the tears at the corners. “You are making this really hard,” he said, voice hoarse, eyes downcast. He inhaled deeply, then stepped on the right and suddenly his face was in full light and Steve’s eyes widened when he noticed the bruise on his jaw.

“What’s that?” he croaked.

Bucky frowned at him, bemused. “What’s what?”

Steve raised a hand, fingertips brushing against Bucky’s chin before he could avoid them and Bucky winced, stepping back. “Nothing,” he said, sharply.

“Who hurt you?” Steve already knew the answer, blind fury mounting inside him. “What happened?”

Bucky looked at him, straight in the eye and it was back again, that ice wall, that coldness that came from within him, shutting Steve out, closing himself off. “I am not yours to save, Steve,” Bucky said, deliberately slow as if wanting to make sure the message arrived.

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it. He wanted to make Pierce and his henchman suffer. The bruise wasn’t Pierce doing, he wasn’t the kind of man who dirtied his own hands, but he knew he was behind it. He wasn’t so sure Bucky did, though.

Nevertheless, Bucky was right. He wasn’t his to save, it wasn’t up to him. Bucky was an adult and he was strong and fierce and perfectly able to take care of himself. The thing was, he didn’t _have to_. Steve caught his lips between his teeth, breath coming out strongly from his nose and run his hand on his face.

“You’re right,” he said in the end, looking at Bucky with the same resolve. “Only you can do that.”

_I believe in you, I believe in you, I believe in you_.

Bucky’s breath hitched.

Steve stepped aside and curled his hands into fists when Bucky walked past him and then past the threshold, his nails leaving half-moons on his palms. He wanted to touch him. He wanted to hold him. _I’m with you till the end of the line_.

But he watched him go through the rippled windows of the gymnasium, like a figure underwater. No more words, no more touches.

“Ah! James, we thought we lost you for a moment.”

Bucky attempted a small smile, but he probably failed. He mumbled some excuse regarding needing a glass of water and fell back in line, avoiding accurately Alexander’s enquiring gaze. In the few minutes in which Steve had kidnapped him, he had basically missed Stark strutting around, which wasn’t new at all and he wasn’t too sad to have failed to witness and, apparently, some quite engaging talk about how the Titanic flew.

“And why do you have two steering wheels?” Lady Carbonell was asking, apparently oblivious of the fact that Stark seemed to be jumping out of his skin in excitement.

“We really only use this to the dock,” the Captain said a good-natured smile on his lips.

Stark caught the occasion to step in and Bucky walked more closely, trying to exorcise the conversation he just had with Steve – _you jump, I jump, remember?_ – by throwing himself into something that necessitated all his attention.

“…wheel is not what could be considered the main ship’s wheel, as it is only used when the ship is subject to frequent changes of course or manoeuvring, as would be done when docking or in a narrow channel,” Stark was saying, showing off like a proud father. “It is connected via an overhead mechanical linkage to the main steering mechanism located further aft in the wheelhouse, here.”

As they approached the structure, an automaton wheeled inside, a piece of paper in a mechanical hand. He handed it to the Captain, who was siding Bucky. His gaze fell on it almost by chance: it was a Marconigram.

“Ice warning number two, sir. From the RMS Baltic,” the automaton said, emotionless, and the Captain folded the paper with a smile.

Stane, who was talking with Pierce about something dull, turned towards them, his expression quite annoyed.

Bucky frowned in confusion.

“Not to worry,” the Captain waved a hand towards Stane. “Our little surprise won’t be affected.”

“What surprise?” Bucky heard himself ask.

The Captain chuckled indulgently. “Oh, dear Lord Wintar, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, now, would it?”

“Surprise?” Stark turned around, his expression was still excited.

“Yes, yes, Howard,” Stane chuckled and patted him on a shoulder. “Let’s go back to your trinkets here.”

Bucky stiffened at the paternalistic tone, but Stark didn’t seem fazed and turned back towards Lady Carbonell, who seemed quite amused by his enthusiasm. Bucky stepped aside, walking towards them – he really preferred to try and learn something between the lines of Stark’s narcissism rather than being involved in some passive-aggressive conversation Alexander was going to start if he stayed behind with him. What if he asked about the bruise? What if he asked about his night out? He wasn’t in the right mindset to deal with that. Not after Steve’s kidnapping, not after his words.

He had been stupid, really, to think he could run away from his problems. The attraction he felt for Steve wasn’t different from that he felt towards plunging to his death after throwing himself out of an airship. It was running. Running from his family, from his responsibilities, from shame. He couldn’t stomach it– He didn’t want to break his mother’s heart, he didn’t want to see his sisters treated like garbage just because their brother was… And he couldn’t risk losing the money. Losing Beatrice Pierce’s dowry money, losing Alexander’s endorsement and his experience in finance. He needed it for his household, for his family.

And at the same time, he thought about the blind fury in Steve’s eyes when he had seen the bruise on his jaw, the passion in his words when he had told him he was on his side - _I am in your corner, pal, till the end of the line_. What did that even mean? Steve couldn’t do a thing to help Bucky. He couldn’t give him anything he needed. He didn’t have means and he didn’t have the social status and, hell, he certainly wasn’t the right gender.

And yet.

And yet Bucky had not laughed so hard his stomach hurt since he was a child; and yet Bucky had never had anyone ready to jump off an airship to save his life; and yet Bucky had never seen anyone looking not even a bit fazed by his metal arm; and yet Bucky had never had anyone dancing with him with fearless enthusiasm; and yet nobody had ever looked at him like Steve Rogers did.

“Lord Wintar?”

Bucky flinched. Lady Carbonell was smiling politely on the door of the chartroom, a gloved hand curled around the doorframe.

“Yes, sorry, I just…” he fumbled, reaching her and offered her his arm – nobody could ever say that James Barnes wasn’t a gentleman. She slipped her small hand in the inside of his elbow, satisfied.

When Stark saw it, he gasped dramatically. “My very own brother. How could you?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Give the lady a break, Stark.”

Howard smiled mischievously. “Oh, but you love me, don’t you? _Maria beautifull Maria / The humming bee the glossy fly / From sun set to their homes retire_.”

Lady Carbonell looked nonplussed.

Bucky snickered. “Poor John Clare.”

Howard went on, unperturbed. “ _Blows coolly on thy neck so fair / Perked up thy wild flower blossoms spring / And join wi’ thee the cooler air / The jiant canterberry bell_.”

Bucky shook his head, walking along the boat deck, as Howard Stark butchered Romantic stanzas like a second-class wandering minstrel. They walked by the emergency lifeboats and Bucky glimpsed at them absent-mindedly. They were well built and sturdy, like everything else on board and they were also… Bucky narrowed his eyes, then craned his neck in a useless attempt to look past the central bulk of the airship, through sails and funnels.

“ _The sultan with its husky flowers / Close by her evening rambles dwell / Rich wi' the evenings dewey hours_.”

He turned again to his left. One, two, three… And then there were more towards the stern, weren’t there? Without even noticing, he picked up the pace, guiding Lady Carbonell, and a too enthusiastic Howard Stark, along the promenade, towards the first class entrance.

“ _My loved and beautifull Maria / What happiness the boon would gie / Close by thy side at days retire / Might I thy loved compa–_ ”

“Mr. Stark,” Bucky interrupted, stopping abruptly before the officers’ promenade.

Howard looked quite annoyed by his brusque cut. “Yes?”

“With the number of airboats times the capacity of the ship... forgive me, but it seems that there are not enough for everyone aboard,” Bucky realized what he was saying while he was saying it.

If he expected Stark to be taken by surprise or to look guilty in any way, though, he was disappointed.

A huge smile split his face in half. “About half, actually,” he answered, cheerfully – maybe too cheerfully; it sounded fake. “James, you miss nothing, do you? In fact, I put in these new type davits, which can take an extra row of boats here,” he gestured along the deck. “But it was thought...” he paused, his voice going down a couple octaves and his smart eyes darkening slightly. He threw a look to the three men standing near the first class entrance, discussing brands of whisky. “By some...” he lingered on Stane with obvious distaste. “That the deck would look too cluttered. So, I was overruled.”

Bucky’s mouth was agape.

Lady Carbonell cleared her throat, trying to cut the tension that was obviously building up. Bucky wondered if she could feel his muscles clench underneath his jacket and shirt. “Well, it is an unsinkable ship, isn’t it? I wouldn’t worry much, Lord Wintar.”

Bucky was still looking at Stark, unable to form a decent answer. He looked back with a strange intensity. There was still a little smile on his lips, but it looked forced, pulled too tight.

“What’s happening here?” Alexander stalked towards them as if he owned the place. “What’s with the long face, James?”

“There are not enough airboats,” Bucky croaked, dully, eyes still on Howard.

Alexander’s gaze went from one to the other, then he scoffed. “Don’t be silly, they are the _appropriate_ number, I’m sure,” he commented. “Now, if you please, dear boy. We’ll be late for lunch. Lady Carbonell?”

She nodded curtly and patted a hand on Bucky’s arm before slipping out his hold and followed Alexander inside.

Howard clasped a hand on his good shoulder, guiding him effortlessly towards the entrance. Bucky followed numbly, unable to do anything else. “Sleep soundly, Barnes, I have built you a good ship, strong and true. She's all the lifeboat you need.”

_They are the appropriate number, I’m sure._

Bucky felt sick.

He didn’t know why this particular exploit of… class privilege was striking him so. He knew Alexander’s beliefs, they mirrored those of the upper class. He was expected to share them. It was natural for Alexander and for men like him to consider people below them as less, less human, less worthy of saving, less important. Sometimes, Bucky wondered if he considered Bucky inferior – with his crippled arm and his complete ineptitude towards economics and finance – no matter how ancient his bloodline was, no matter the fact that he was the son of his long-life business partner.

Bucky thought about Steve, the strong grip of his hand on his metal shoulder blade. _I’ve got you. I won’t let go_. He thought about Alexander and his certainty that he was the only one who could save Bucky and his family, the sense of power that entailed.

_I am not yours to save, Steve._

But he wondered, was he Alexander’s? Wasn’t there any other way?

_You’re right. You’re the only one who can do that_.

Bucky looked one last time at the lifeboats. One thing was certain: he was the only one who could decide that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem quoted is _Beautifull Maria_ by John Clare.


	10. Come Josephine... (April 14th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I want you to draw me like one of your French girls, boys, whatever,” he felt himself flush and stumble at the end of the sentence.
> 
> Steve nodded, still looking at the diamond, as if Bucky had not just cut his chest open.
> 
> A pause.
> 
> “Wearing this,” he added, deadpan.
> 
> Steve blinked, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows. He started turning his head towards Bucky in confusion.
> 
> “Wearing only this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the big moment, of course. I cannot even describe with words how I feel about Kay's amazing art for this chapter. Look for yourselves. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
> 
> There is nobody but our boys in this chapter. Enjoy.

There was a precise time of the day, Steve had noticed, in which everyone flocked inside the ship to have dinner, forgetting about the rest of the world. It had happened the first day and the second day even the day before, though that time he had been guilty of the same sin. People just had priorities, he guessed, or were only obtusely attached to silly rules.

So, Steve was alone, right at the apex of the bow railing, eyes glued to the horizon. The dusk was a blast of yellow and orange and pink and blue and indigo all mixed together as they would appear on the palette of a crazy painter. Steve craved to be that crazy painter. The sky was as if lit by the embers of a giant fire and it was so beautiful it took his breath away.

He wanted to capture it, to put it on canvas, to be able to look at it every day of his life.

And he wanted to show Bucky.

A lump formed in his throat at the thought. He wondered how he was, he wondered who he was with, he wondered if the bruise on his chin had disappeared, if he was… alright. He breathed out heavily, eyes narrowing at the strength of the wind pushing back his hair, blowing up the sails, making the ropes squeak and moan for the strain.

“You are a hard man to find, Steve.”

Steve started and turned so abruptly he felt something in his neck snap.

Bucky was standing there, hands in his pockets and a little smile on his cupid-bow lips. The deep blue velvet of his suit made his eyes look as deep as the ocean, a thousand feet below them. His cheeks were red with the chill wind and his curls danced in the air like the first time Steve had seen him, standing on the upper deck like the privateer Conrad in Byron’s _The_ _Corsair_. Steve’s heart swelled in his chest, suddenly too big to be confined inside.

Bucky mistook his silence for caution, even suspicion, and his smile faltered; he averted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Listen– ”

“Come here,” Steve interrupted, and his voice broke with emotion – Bucky was here, he was here and he was okay. “Come here,” he said again, reaching out. “Give me your hand.”

Bucky stepped forward and raised his left hand, the dark metal shining in the sunset like gold. Steve felt a wave of emotion running through him like electricity. He took his hand and pulled slightly towards him. Another powerful gust of wind inflated the sails and the enormous rust-colored fabric hid them from the rest of the world.

“Now close your eyes,” Steve murmured when Bucky stopped a palm or so from him. “Go on.”

He smiled a lopsided smile but obeyed. He had thick eyelashes, Steve noticed, darker near the roots and hazel all to their straight end. He wanted to paint him, he wanted to exactly replicate the shadows they created under his eyes, where the skin was tender and soft.

Steve let out a shaky breath and adjusted the grip on Bucky’s left hand, moving to the side and guiding him towards the apex of the bow railing, spreading his palm on his lower back. He was warm and solid and real.

“Now step up, hold onto the railing,” he whispered, even if nobody else was there, nobody could eavesdrop. It just felt too intimate not to.

Steve pressed Bucky against the rail, gently, standing behind him. He could see the pink orange yellow light of the sunset light up Bucky’s skin, painting him in the softest pastels, making his dark brown curls shine gold.

“Keep your eyes closed,” Steve said, lips almost brushing Bucky’s ear; he spotted the exact moment in which his skin covered in goosebumps. He chuckled softly. “Don’t peek.”

“I’m not,” Bucky grumbled. “Jerk.”

“Language.”

“Shut up.”

Steve smiled, resisting the urge to just press his lips below his earlobe. He glanced quickly behind his shoulder, the wind was still blowing up the sails, hiding them.

“Step up onto the rail,” Steve brushed his fingertips against Bucky’s hip, beneath his velvet jacket, right where his waistcoat ended in a snazzy and fashionable v over his trousers.

“If you are trying to get rid of me, Rogers…” Bucky mumbled but obeyed, his hands curling around the tie-rod in front of him, the top of his thighs pressing against the rail.

“Nah,” Steve imitated him, framing his body with his arms, pressing against him from behind, one hand holding onto one of the ropes, the other closing around Bucky’s elbow. “I am just trying to steal your pocket watch.”

Bucky laughed, a breathy, short, almost sobbing sound. He was warm and solid and real and Steve… and Steve thought he had never felt like this before in his life, his heart too big even for his grown body.

“Keep your eyes closed.”

“They are closed, you– ”

“Do you trust me?” Steve interrupted him, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them.

He felt as if the time had stopped. He couldn’t hear anything – no wind, no engines, no creaking sounds, no squeaks – except Bucky breathing.

“I trust you,” he said, low but sure.

With his answer, time started again, rushed even, and Steve gaped, feeling as queasy as after stepping out of the Cyclone in Coney Island. Bucky trusted him, Bucky _trusted_ him. He let go of the rope and ran his fingers along his forearms, gently, reverently, with the same delicate respect he would have dedicated to a work of art. When he got to his wrists, he made sure to brush his fingertips against the pulse point on his right and against the gold and copper wires that curled elegantly around pipes and hoses, like veins and arteries – they were warm, they were _warm_. Bucky’s breath hitched, but he didn’t open his eyes, allowing Steve to unlock his hands from the tie-rod, spreading his arms like wings. When he let go, Bucky didn’t lower them.

“Alright,” Steve whispered, slipping his hands underneath Bucky’s jacket, framing his waist to steady him. “Open your eyes.”

Bucky gasped. Steve felt his abdomen tense and then relax underneath his fingers and he pressed his body against Bucky’s, shoulders, hips, legs, embracing him, hooking his chin over his collarbone and pressing his temple against Bucky’s ear.

There was nothing in their field of vision but the dusk, brushstroke over brushstroke of blues and yellows and oranges and pinks and reds, thick and heavy like temperas, the sun a ball of fire, slowly swallowed inside the ocean. There was no airship under them at all, just the two of them, soaring over the shield of the water.

“I’m flying,” Bucky said, breathless, a dreamy smile in his words, and Steve only pressed his lips against his neck, not bothering to correct him, telling him they were already flying, a thousand feet or so over the Atlantic, because he knew what Bucky meant, he knew what he wasn’t saying.

Bucky leaned against him, his back plastered against Steve’s chest, and Steve raised his hands, meeting Bucky’s, gently brushing his fingertips against flesh and metal, draw imaginary figures and shapes against his palms, intertwining their fingers with infinite patience, with deliberate tenderness. And Bucky responded, plates shifting and pads curling in a soundless dance, in an elaborate courtship, caressing through and around each other’s hands.

Steve couldn’t breathe. It was the most intimate moment of his life. He closed his eyes, forehead pressing against the side of Bucky’s head, breathing in the salty scent of his blowing curls, letting it wash over him. “ _Come Josephine, in my flying machine_ ,” he sung, raspy and out of tune and Bucky chuckled, trying to turn towards him. “ _Going up she goes, up she goes_.”

“Am I Josephine in this scenario?” Bucky was smiling, his eyes crinkled at the sides and he was so close, so close Steve could count the little freckles on his nose. One, two, three, four, they looked like constellations.

“I’m not sure,” Steve answered, cross-eyed, still too busy to number the stars on Bucky’s skin to make any sense. “It’s actually Stark’s flying machine.”

“Hush, Steve.”

Steve didn’t bother telling him he had started talking first, because Bucky was turning his head more purposefully and his lips were dangerously close, so red and bow-shaped and soft looking. He clasped his hands over Steve’s, tangling their fingers, and lowered their arms, turning further and wrapping them around himself from behind and before Steve could realize what was happening, Bucky’s mouth found his. They kissed like this, Bucky’s head tilted back and Steve’s arms enveloping him in an eager embrace. They kissed, lips pressing slowly and tremulously against each other, then more urgently, soft touches becoming fervent, Bucky’s fingers in Steve’s hair, massaging his scalp at a weird angle, teeth nibbling at the corners of their smiles. And Steve wasn’t thinking, couldn’t think, eyes closed and air coming out in gasps and soft whimpers and Bucky’s metal hand curling around his elbow, keeping him close, so, so close, pressed against his back, against the railing, and there was nothing else, nothing else, nothing but Bucky’s smile against his lips and the soft nuzzling of his cold nose against his cheek and his hazel eyelashes fluttering like the wings of a butterfly.

The lock clicked and Bucky lowered the handle, pushing the door just enough to peek inside. He waited for a couple of seconds, listening attentively for anything suspicious. But the room was utterly silent and completely empty.

“Come in,” he said as he entered the room, a secret smile on his lips, Steve stumbling behind him, his hand grasping at the back of Bucky’s jacket like a child to his mother’s skirt. Bucky let him step inside, before disentangling from his hold and pressing his back against the door, closing it shut.

Steve’s mouth was ajar, his eyes taking in the opulence of the room with a kind of naïve stupor. He walked to the fireplace, his fingers running over the spotless mantel, the crystal vases, the petals of the fresh roses, white and red. He strolled past it, marveling at the beautiful upholsteries of the sofas and the armchairs, the thin legs of the tea tables, the little statues, and ornaments. There was a strange expression in his eyes: bewilderment and admiration but also guilt, uneasiness.

“This is the sitting room,” Bucky said, to fill the silence.

Steve raised his gaze and when their eyes locked, his whole demeanor relaxed, a smile colored his features.

“Will this light do?” Bucky asked, hurrying to turn on every possible lamp in the room.

“What?” Steve asked, distracted.

“Don’t artists need good light?” Bucky checked out an ancient oil lamp, considering if it was necessary to light it up as well – he was pretty sure it was supposed to be decorative.

He was nervous. Why was he nervous?

“Zat is true,” Steve conceded, and Bucky turned, his lips quirking up naturally at the terrible fake French accent. “But I am not used to working in such 'orreeble conditions.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, tension slowing abandoning him. “You are an idiot.”

Steve chuckled, then he froze, his eyes stopping somewhere near the door to Alexander’s quarters and his mouth opened in a lovely “o” of astonishment.

“Is this a Monet?” he asked excitedly as he walked to the other side of the room, where a couple of canvases Bucky had not noticed before lied forgotten. There was a note nearby and Bucky recognized Stark’s signature. It was probable a gift he had sent in order to establish some kind of partnership with Alexander. For some reason, the thought made him feel uneasy.

“Look at this,” Steve crouched in front of the canvas like a believer in front of the cross. “Isn't he great? Look at the use of color. The way the greens become pink, the reflection of the water lilies.”

Bucky smiled fondly, looking at him: his cheeks flushed with enthusiasm, the blue of his eyes suddenly brighter, like the Mediterranean in summer.

“And these fragments of yellow, look at how the paint is thicker here, to hint at a shape which is not there,” he sat on his heels in adoration, looking at the painting as if he was worshipping it.

Bucky just stared at him, his heart beating fast. He wanted to tell him he could have it, he could have everything he wanted, Alexander probably wouldn’t even notice that it was missing. He wasn’t keen on new painters and he certainly wasn’t keen on Impressionists. As Steve cooed and fussed over Monet’s water lilies, Bucky walked inside Alexander’s room, struck by a sudden inspiration. He went straight for the safe in the back of the walk-in wardrobe closet. He started working the combination with ease and after a couple of attempts, the lock unlocked with a clunk. Bucky took out the thin, blue case and turned around. Steve was still looking at the Monet. Bucky smiled, then reached him, sitting on the carpeted floor beside him. He poked him on a shin with the tip of his shiny shoe. Steve blinked as if waking up from a long and wonderful dream and tilted his head towards him.

“Sorry,” he said, sheepishly. “I always wanted to meet him, Monet, but he was already in Giverny when I arrived in Paris.”

“There is no need to apologize. However, I wanted to show you something.”

When he was certain he had his attention, he opened the case and revealed the jewel inside. The Heart of the Ocean shone lazily in the artificial light, like an animal waking up from hibernation. Steve’s eyes widened and Bucky nudged him.

“Take it,” he encouraged.

Steve picked it up nervously, his thick fingers delicate and tentative. “What is it?” he asked, overwhelmed. “A sapphire?”

“A diamond,” Bucky amended. “It’s called the Heart of the Ocean. It is a family heirloom.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “This is _yours_?”

“Well, yes. My family’s,” Bucky grimaced. “It is supposed to be my engagement gift to Beatrice.”

Steve turned it in his hands, observing how the facets caught the light. Bucky took a deep breath, then licked his lips, gathering all the courage he could. He thought about the way in which Steve had drawn those people on his sketchbook, he thought about how effortless every portrait had seemed. He thought about the way in which sometimes he had looked at him as if he was taking measurements or notes in his head.

“Steve,” he started. _I don’t know how this will end but I want, I want…_

“Mh?”

“I want you to draw me like one of your French girls, boys, whatever,” he felt himself flush and stumble at the end of the sentence.

Steve nodded, still looking at the diamond, as if Bucky had not just cut his chest open.

A pause.

“Wearing this,” he added, deadpan.

Steve blinked, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows. He started turning his head towards Bucky in confusion.

“Wearing _only_ this.”

Steve’s neck snapped so quickly that Bucky feared he had strained something. He opened and closed his mouth two or three times, the blush spreading on his neck and beyond. _Beyond_. Bucky tried very hard not to explode in a burst of hysterical laughter and managed just barely.

Then, everything happened in a hazy blur. Bucky vaguely took off his jacket and his trousers, velvet piling up on the floor like the pond in Monet’s painting. He popped every button of his waistcoat out of their respective holes, the feeling of the Egyptian cotton of his shirt slipping soundlessly from his shoulders. He watched Steve through the mirror above the fireplace, the way in which he laid out his pencils with surgical precision, his sketchbook open on a new page, perfectly lined with the corner of the tea table. He smiled, blood rushing to his cheeks when he realized he was doing it to courteously avoid peeking. Bucky hesitated before turning towards him, self-conscious of all the imperfections of his body, the scars running like cobwebs where his metal shoulder met his chest, the leather harness cutting red lines on his skin. He took a deep breath before reaching out with his metal hand, his fingers closing around the cold stone, fumbling with the clasp of the necklace.

“Here, let me.”

Steve was behind him, his hands brushing the back of Bucky’s neck, making him shiver. He couldn’t help but notice that he had taken off his coat and his jacket, and his suspenders were hanging empty along his legs. Bucky tried to control his trembling breath, eyes wandering on Steve; Steve, who was struggling with the necklace, Steve, who was unbothered by the scars and the burns and the metal.

Steve who was looking at him like he had looked at the Monet and Bucky felt like crying.

He groped aimlessly at the mantel of the fireplace, his eyes incapable of leaving the mirror where Steve was fidgeting, his eyes trained on Bucky’s naked shoulders, his nape, his collarbones. When they looked at each other in the reflecting surface, Bucky had a small dime clutched between his index and middle finger. Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Paying customer,” Bucky said, his lips quirking upwards.

Steve laughed a breathless laugh and stepped back. “On the sofa, paying customer.”

“Bossy.”

The sensation of the upholstery against his naked skin was like anything he had ever experienced. It was a soft, forbidden tingling, as when a bee lands on your arm and attempts a couple of steps before flying away. There had still been some bees in the countryside when Bucky was a child. They were all gone now.

He sat first, then leaned on the side, tilting his head back to lie on the cushions that Steve had piled up there. He nuzzled his face against the soft fabric, breathing out his nervousness.

“Tell me when it looks right to you,” he mumbled, his muscles taut and tense.

Steve sat on one of the armchairs, crossing his legs and leaning his sketchbook against his thigh. He took him in with a long look, studying him like something invaluable. He fiddled with a charcoal pencil, playing nervously with it, covering his fingers in black soot.

“Put your arm back the way it was,” he whispered, voice hoarse.

Bucky bent his left arm, the circuits and gears whizzing lazily as he raised it above his head, wrist leaning languidly against the cushion.

“Right, put that other arm up, that hand right by your face there,” he raised his right to show him, black fingertips leaving a smudge of charcoal on his forehead.

Bucky smiled, amused, but didn’t say anything. He mirrored his gesture.

“Right, now... just bend your left leg a little and...”

Bucky obeyed, skin shifting on skin. Steve bit his lips.

“A-and head down.”

Bucky tipped his chin downwards, gaze low on the floor.

“No,” Steve hurried to correct him. “Eyes on me, keep them on me.”

They looked at each other, artist and model, and Bucky couldn’t believe how fast his heart was beating. He was baring himself, body and soul, and Steve was accepting it so graciously, so respectfully, he looked like someone who was let in in a secret they would keep until their death.

“That's it. Now try to stay still.”

Bucky chuckled and Steve huffed. Bucky didn’t know who was more nervous; he could feel every pore of his skin tingle with goosebumps, electricity flowing through him, putting him on edge. Steve started sketching, eyes darting fast between Bucky and the notebook. His irises were limpid, almost aquamarine, his rebellious blond bangs kept falling in front of them and Bucky thought _I will remember this, only this, only this little detail, thin blond locks on blue eyes, until the day I die_.

The room was so silent, the only noise the soft scratching of the charcoal against the paper. Bucky almost didn’t dare to breathe.

Steve looked focussed, completely taken by his work, the crease between his eyebrows more pronounced than ever, his lips curved down in a concentrated pout. He looked so driven, so willing to do him justice, to repay Bucky’s trust in the only way he could.

“So serious,” Bucky teased to break the tension and the right corner of Steve’s lip curved upwards.

He recognized the shift in Steve’s demeanor when the charcoal moved to the left, drawing a strong, horizontal line. Instinctively, Bucky glanced at the lower part of his body, teeth nibbling at his lower lip. Steve didn’t miss the shift and cleared his throat, a blush spreading on his cheeks.

“I believe you’re blushing Mr. Big Artiste,” Bucky teased, hopefully covering his own insecurity.

Steve smiled shyly again, struggling to hide it, his fingertips blurring the lines he had just drawn.

“I can’t imagine Monsieur Monet blushing,” Bucky went on, aiming for casual.

The charcoal slipped from Steve’s fingers, rolling on the carpet, and they both laughed, throaty and awkward, and when Steve picked it up, he looked straight at Bucky, trying to sport his most neutral expression and failing miserably.

“He does landscapes,” he deadpanned.

Bucky collapsed in a fit of giggles and Steve pretended to be exasperated.

“Bucky,” he said, trying to sound menacing, but the fact that he couldn’t seem able to stop smiling somehow ruined the effect. “Relax your face. No laughing.”

Bucky caught his lips between his teeth, his abdomen still shaking with silent laughter. “Sorry,” he breathed out.

Steve shook his head in mock severity and went back to draw, adding details with the tip of the charcoal, blending and softening the hard, black lines, his gaze caressing Bucky’s body like the touch of a lover – sensual and attentive and careful. Bucky felt a lump forming in his throat. Nobody had ever looked at him like that, nobody had ever made him feel like a work of art, like someone worth watching, worth observing, drawing and painting and… loving. Steve was loving him with his soft blue eyes and the fond curve of his mouth and the delicate touch of his fingers on paper. Bucky wanted those hands on him, caressing the curve of his waist and the sharpness of his hipbones, leaving traces of black on his abdomen, on the back of his knees, where his veins ran blue, and his heartbeat resonated like shooting. He wanted Steve’s lips where metal met skin, mending his scars, soothing his burns. He wanted all of that and yet he couldn’t help but feel that he was already having it, right in that moment, right there, with Steve drawing him, so full of life. If he could have stretched that instant to the infinite, he would have done it in a heartbeat.


	11. ...in my flying machine (April 14th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where to, m’lord?” Steve asked, lofty and pretentious.
> 
> Bucky stuck his head out, temple resting against Steve’s. He crossed his arms at the top of the backseat and smiled, his stomach pleasantly twirling at the sensation of having Steve so close, the warmth of his body creeping inside of him like rest after a long day.
> 
> “The future,” he whispered, soft and wistful, his lips brushing Steve’s cheekbone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At to spend this Sunday of self-isolation I gift you with 4000 words of smut.

Steve had just finished tracing the R of his initial at the bottom right of the drawing when Bucky leaned in from above. Steve tilted the sketchbook towards him, a smile on his lips.

“Very professional,” Bucky teased, looking at the drawing.

It was beautiful. The smoky nature of the charcoal created a stark contrast against the white, textured paper. Bucky was leaning leisurely against the divan, one leg stretched out, the other slightly bent. Everything about him was exposed, from the elegant curve of his neck to the scars that scratched his chest, to the defined muscles of his abdomen, to the lazy weight of his virility against his thigh. And his arm. Steve had drawn his arm like a piece of artistry, like the fragment of a Greek bronze statue, smudging the thick lines with the side of his ring finger to recreate its metallic shine. It looked majestic, like the weapon of an ancient hero, something legendary, Excalibur or Durendal or Achilles’ spear. And Bucky looked like that hero, wounded, but fierce and at the same time so, so human – his curls in disarray, his eyes, so vivid, his mouth, curved in a childish pout, his expression relaxed and open. And the precious stone on his chest resting proudly like a medal of honor.

“What do you think?” Steve asked, and he sounded nervous, almost sheepish.

Bucky swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s… is this how you see me?”

Steve shrugged. “This is what you are.”

Bucky leaned in, pressing his lips against Steve’s, inhaling deeply as he did. Steve’s shoulders sagged as he melted under Bucky’s touch and when they separated Bucky couldn’t help but snicker at how he reached out to kiss him again and again and a third time, until Bucky pinched him on a shoulder before retreating.

“Hey!” Steve protested.

Bucky turned his back on him, putting the necklace back inside its case. He hesitated for a second, then closed it shut. When he walked back to Steve, he was looking at him with a cryptic look.

“Will you put this back in the safe for me?” Bucky asked, handing it to him.

Steve nodded, getting up and leaving his sketchbook open on the table. Bucky’s gaze lingered on it, fondly, trying to remember every detail. He wanted to always keep in mind how Steve saw him, how he had chosen to portrait him, like someone beautiful and brave and complete. Steve’s hand on his hip woke him up from his reverie and he tilted his head back, allowing him to lay a constellation of kisses along his jaw.

“You can have it,” Steve mumbled against his skin.

It took a second to understand that he meant the drawing. “No,” Bucky said, low and raw. “I want you to keep it.”

Before Steve could answer, the handle of the door started lowering extremely slowly, as if the person on the other side was trying to make as little noise as possible. Bucky’s eyes widened and instinctively he grabbed the drawing with one hand, Steve’s arm with the other and started running towards his own bedroom, passing through Alexander’s.

“Lord Wintar?” came Rumlow’s voice from the sitting room, but Bucky had already yanked the door open, dragging Steve who was barely more helpful than a sack of potatoes.

“Get a move on!” he hissed, kicking the door behind him and starting to walk quickly along the corridor to the B deck foyer.

“My drawings!” Steve tried to protest, but there was no time. As soon as they reached halfway across the open space, they heard a slamming sound and when Bucky looked behind his shoulder Brock was in the middle of the corridor, looking feverishly right and left for them.

Bucky grabbed Steve’s wrist and broke in a run for the utter dismay of the gentlemen and the ladies present. They passed by the grand staircase and Bucky decided last minute to go for the elevators, where a couple of very distinct gentlemen was coming out right in that moment. He slipped on the polished floor, stumbling on his unlaced shoes and threw himself inside the small space of the elevator, Steve crashed against the poor automat-operator, who wobbled dangerously but managed to stay upright.

“Quickly!” Bucky yelled. “Take us down!”

The automaton complied and Steve, finally up to date with the haphazard escape, hurried to help it close the steel gate. Bucky was bursting with adrenaline, Steve’s drawing still clutched in his metal hand and when Rumlow slammed his hands against the bars, growling something definitely rude Bucky couldn’t help but burst in a delighted laugh.

He turned towards Steve, mirth in his eyes, and Steve– oh Steve was looking at him in a way that made Bucky feel very happy of the fact that the only other being that had the misfortune of sharing an elevator with them was a feelingless robot.

“This is yours,” Bucky said, coyly, handing him the very explicit drawing and Steve flushed violently as he folded the paper in two, then in four, then in six and stuffed it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

The door opened on the corridor of the E-deck and they stumbled outside before the platform reached the right height.

“This way,” Steve said and this time he was dragging Bucky along the white-painted hallways, zigzagging in a multitude of passengers who were on their way back to their cabins, automata with trays full of half-finished dinners requested via room service and a variegate army of attendants. Steve slammed a door open and they tumbled in a service corridor where they stopped to take a breath. Steve’s face was as red as a tomato and his breath was coming out in short huffs.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked, concern making his smile falter.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve turned towards him and winked. “Bad lungs,” he shrugged.

Bucky opened his mouth to say something, to suggest… he had no idea what he was going to suggest but before he could say anything, he spotted Rumlow through the porthole on the door and – _shit_ – he saw him back.

“Go!” he shouted, pushing Steve, who rushed towards the closest opening.

It was a steel-reinforced door with an ominous ‘CREW ONLY’ sign painted in red. They slammed it close behind them and Steve latched the deadbolt with such force that it creaked, then abandoned himself against hit, chest heaving up and down. If Brock was making a scene outside, punching the door and shouting and trying to get in, Bucky couldn’t say. The whistling of the boilers and the whirring of the fans and aeration systems covered every other noise. Bucky had no idea where they were, but Steve had a knowing smirk on his lips, even if his eyes were closed and was trying his best to regulate his breath. Bucky stood there, looking at him, following with his gaze the pearly drops of sweat that rolled from his temple to his chin. He wanted to press his lips there, the flat of his tongue.

Steve took a deeper breath and Bucky cleared his throat, brushing away his ill-timed fantasies and ran a fingertip on the back of Steve’s hand in a silent question. Steve’s smile softened and he opened one eye, nodding just so.

“You okay?” Bucky mouthed, and Steve nodded again, straightened his shoulders and grabbed his hand, guiding him towards a steep ladder.

They climbed down, Bucky regretting very much his choice of shoes, and Steve helped him down like a real gentleman, big hands around his waist. When Bucky turned, they were so close his eyes couldn’t help but fixing on his lips.

“What the hell are you two doing here?”

They turned abruptly towards the booming voice, Bucky recoiling so hard he hit the metal ladder with his good shoulder. He groaned, hand darting up to massage it.

In front of them, Dum Dum Dugan – cheeks streaked black by coal, bowler hat absurdly in its place and a gigantic shovel in his hands – was looking at them like they were two ghosts – or two passengers that had just sneaked where they shouldn’t.

Steve scratched the back of his neck. “We, uh…”

“We’re running from a thug,” Bucky admitted candidly because it was the honest truth and he didn’t see a reason for lying to Dugan.

Dum Dum raised his eyebrows, then opened his arms to show them where they had ended up. And finally, Bucky took a second to look around.

They were inside an enormous boiler room. Bucky counted at least five or six furnaces, but there was so much smoke and the light was so dim that he couldn’t really say where the room finished. At the top of every furnace, an odd mechanism shone eerily blue. Bucky wondered if that had anything to do with the reactor thing Stark had mentioned. For every furnace at least two men were shoveling coal inside. They were all covered in soot, the color of their clothes barely recognizable underneath. Their skin shone like bronze, sweat covered, cigarettes dangling from their lips as if all the smoke they were breathing was not enough. There were also automata, they pushed handcarts and wheelbarrows, their programming preventing them to get to close to the raging fires of the furnaces. They were precious – automata – nobody could afford to lose them, not like men. Men were expendable.

Dugan looked up the ladder, then at Steve and sighed, but he was grinning. “Why doesn’t this surprise me?”

Steve put on an affronted face. “Hey! This is Bucky’s thug!”

“Yeah?” Dugan crossed his arms. “Like that one time in Le Havre when it was Dernier’s thug?”

As if evoked, Dernier appeared from behind an automaton. He had a matchstick between his lips – something that didn’t look particularly safe. “Qui invoque mon nom en vain?” he asked completely serious. “Salut, Steve,” he added, as an afterthought, as if it was completely normal that Steve was there.

And suddenly Bucky realized– it was. It was normal for those men to see Steve in a boiler room, covered in sweat and soot, trying to hide his cough discreetly, his chest just barely wincing.

Then Dernier looked at Bucky and raised his eyebrows. “Oh, Bucky, toi aussi?” he asked as if he was just a colleague he wasn’t expecting to meet and not a first-class passenger with his shoes unlaced, his shirt half open and his suspenders dangling uselessly along his thighs.

“Ça va, Dernier?”

“Ça va, ça va,” he waved absent-mindedly, then started to rummage in his pockets. “Steve, tu as encore des ennuis?”

“We both are,” Steve crossed his arms. “Aren’t you on a shift?”

They smiled a wolfish smile. “ _Lieutenant_ James Montgomery Falsworth est le superviseur,” Dernier answered, pompously, briefly interrupting his search.

Steve raised an eyebrow, but Bucky couldn’t help but notice that he was fighting a smile. “And that’s a reason for slacking off?”

A distinct clang came from upstairs, a sharp noise that not even the noisy environment of the boiler room could cover. Steve and Bucky exchanged a nervous glance and looked up.

“Is this a party?” Gabe Jones appeared out of thin air, so covered in soot that only the white of his eyes and his smile betrayed his presence in the dim light. He didn’t seem surprise to see either Bucky or Steve there. He handed Dernier a cigarette without even hesitating.

“Steve managed to find trouble,” Dum Dum explained, balancing his shovel on one shoulder, eyes trained up the opening. “And the trouble is about to catch up.”

The harsh noise of something impacting against something else made them all grimace. The damn door wasn’t going to resist much more, especially if Rumlow was trying to smash it down with the help of some sort of makeshift battering ram.

Gabe passed by and hit Steve on his shoulder with the back of his shovel. “Follow me, I’ll show you out.”

“God’s speed, boys. We’ll gain you some time.”

“Bonne chance.”

They zigzagged around the boilers, the embers in the fireboxes red like lava. It was like a vision of hell itself, with the roaring furnaces and black figures moving in the smoking glow. Behind them, voices started to rise.

“He made it down,” Bucky said, adrenaline rushing back in his body.

Gabe pointed towards a dark alley beyond an open watertight door. “Straight on, through boiler room six, cargo room. From there, you’ll see stairs going back up. Go!”

Steve smiled gratefully and Bucky tried to put all his sincerity in his thank you. They started to run again and Steve’s hand closed over Bucky’s. Bucky tangled their fingers, heart in his throat, wondering if Gabe was seeing that, asking himself what he was thinking. They passed the threshold of boiler room six, dodging expressionless automata-stokers and trimmers with their wheelbarrows of coal. They wind up in the dark, out of sight, steam all around them. Before he could turn a corner, Steve’s grasp on his hand tightened and he pulled him back. Bucky stopped, forehead frowning in confusion, and he turned on his heels, ready to tell Steve they had to move and what was wrong? Was it his lungs? But before he could even form a syllable, Steve’s mouth was on his, hot and wet and ravenous. Bucky’s breath hitched in his throat, his free hand running up quickly to the back of Steve’s head. He pressed his fingertips against his nape, run them through his short, sweaty hair. And Steve was kissing him, hungry and open-mouthed. He tasted sour and salty, like sulfur and sweat and fire. Bucky pressed his thumb against his pulse point, on his throat and Steve moaned in his mouth, gasping for air, his forehead pressing against Bucky, his nose bumping against his cheek.

“Gonna get outta here,” Steve panted, then pulled back with what looked like an enormous effort in self-control.

Bucky mumbled something, dizzy, and let Steve yank him forward, towards a small, almost invisible door. He pushed it open and the shocking temperature drop made them both shiver. Bucky closed the door behind them, the deadlock clicking shut.

The cargo room was as big as the boiler rooms had been and at least twenty degrees colder. Goosebumps rose on Bucky’s skin, the sweat suddenly turning cool, making him clammy and itchy. It took a couple of seconds to realize that the thundering, pounding roar of the fires had left space to a dull nothing, his ears buzzing and ringing.

“Look at this,” Steve murmured, dumbfounded, his gaze lingering on the heaps of wooden boxes, suitcases, trunks, and luggage of variable nature stacked and covered in rope nets to keep them still.

Bucky wondered if there was some of Alexander’s stuff there, whatever he had bought in Europe and was planning to bring back to the United States. They wandered aimlessly, their steps resonating in the metal covered room like gunshots.

“Is that…?”

Bucky turned and his mouth opened in surprise. A snazzy brand-new touring car was lashed down to a pallet. It was a brilliant red, shiny and polished; it looked like a royal coach from a fairy tale, it's golden brass trim and headlamps nicely set off by its swanky color.

They walked closer and Bucky chuckled when he recognized Stark’s surname in golden letters on the side.

“Of course,” he said, almost fondly.

Stark was crazy, but he certainly got style.

“I can’t believe he brought with him a _car_ ,” Steve said, disbelieving. “He could have made a new one in the US, certainly.”

Bucky shrugged. “Maybe this is special.”

He paused. They exchanged a look, two identical mischievous smiles blossoming on their faces. Bucky grabbed his metal wrist with his flesh hand behind his back, chin lifted, shoulders straightened, and stopped beside the car. Steve walked around him and schooled his expression in something serious and courteous opening the door and motioning him inside. Bucky fought a smile, climbing into the plush upholstered back seat. It smelt new, like leather and polish. There were cut crystal bud vases on the walls back there, each containing a red rose. Bucky snorted; Stark was ridiculous. The curtains could be taken down and the floor was covered by a soft carpet, decorated with flowers. Bucky ran his fingers on the fine trimming. In front of him there were two additional seats, the kind that you could put down, if necessary, and between them, a collection of buttons and switches to set a radio station to envy.

While Bucky was marveling at the insides of Howard Stark’s car, Steve had jumped on the driver’s seat, hands on the leather wheel and a smug expression reflected on the windshield in front of him. Bucky flicked a switch on the side and the dividing glass slid down with a soft buzz. Well, got it in one try.

“Where to, m’lord?” Steve asked, lofty and pretentious.

Bucky stuck his head out, temple resting against Steve’s. He crossed his arms at the top of the backseat and smiled, his stomach pleasantly twirling at the sensation of having Steve so close, the warmth of his body creeping inside of him like rest after a long day.

“The future,” he whispered, soft and wistful, his lips brushing Steve’s cheekbone.

Steve smiled and reached out to squeeze the hooter and Bucky succumbed to a fit of giggles at the satisfied expression that bloomed on his face when it produced a long, satisfying beep.

“Come here, you ragger.”

Bucky slipped his arms underneath Steve’s armpits and pulled his considerable weight in the cabin, over and through the driver seat. Steve choked a laugh and bumped his head against the wooden frame and landed on his butt on the floor. He looked up to Bucky. “I’m a what?”

“A ragger,” Bucky repeated, unrepentant, kicking him slightly on the side.

Steve heaved up on the comfortable seat and there they were, thighs pressed, hips touching, and Steve leaned in, his nose brushing Bucky’s. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Bucky hummed, going cross-eyed in the effort to keep gazing into Steve's blue eyes. “Troublemaker,” he declared.

Steve chuckled, one arm curling around Bucky’s shoulders, pulling him even closer. Bucky felt his free hand tangling with his metal fingers and let go a shaky breath as Steve’s thumb pressed softly where thumb and pointer met. He felt a wave of loss ran through him – he wanted to feel that, that pressure, that tender gesture.

“You okay?” Steve asked, quietly, because something must have shown in his expression.

Bucky nodded and his nose bumped against Steve’s. They cackled, nervously, suddenly hyper-aware of how close they were, from their sweaty hair to their ankles, awkwardly intertwined at a strange angle. Steve’s fingers kept brushing against Bucky’s, like at the top of the bow – and he didn’t care, he didn’t care, he didn’t care, as he hadn’t cared when he had drawn him, human and god, lying on the sofa.

He exhaled, eyes falling on Steve’s lips. They were red and chapped and there was still sweat above his upper lip. He leaned forward to lick it away, to kiss him like he had kissed him on the bow and in the boiler room, but Steve lifted their interlocked hands and started pressing soft kisses against his fingertips, one by one, thumb and index and middle and ring and little finger, the dark grey looking alien against his pale complexion, pressing against his pink lips.

Steve’s other arm curled around his neck, his hand cupping his jaw, tilting it up.

“Look at me,” Steve whispered and his breath clashed against brass and vibranium and gold, hot condensation appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye.

And Bucky looked at him, at his limpid eyes and his long eyelashes, stuck together and curled up like a girl’s. He looked at the straight line of his nose, once – or twice – broken, similar to that of a Greek statue. He looked at his Irish pale skin, the beads of sweat framing his eyebrows, the phantom of a crease between them. Bucky shivered, focusing on Steve’s lips kissing his hand, the junctures and the seams, his palm and his knuckles. He let go a whimper when Steve’s mouth closed around his index and middle finger, suckling them, circling them with his tongue, his eyelids low and his chest heaving up and down as he breathed from his nose.

Bucky brought his right arm, that up to that point had been squished between their bodies, to the back of Steve’s neck, dragging him forward, planting an open-mouthed kiss against Steve’s lips, where he was still worshipping his fingers. He tasted metal and sweat and dust and Steve turned in his embrace, allowing Bucky to tangle his metal hand in his hair, to draw him closer and closer.

They were a messy jumble of limbs, and saggy clothes and sweaty skin.

“Off…” Bucky grumbled, teeth nibbling at Steve’s lower lip as he tried to free him from that stupid coat he still had on.

Steve huffed a laugh and kissed the tip of his nose and leaned back to free himself of the offending garment. Bucky took advantage of the temporary distance to start unbuttoning his own shirt, hands shaking. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to take a deep breath and when he opened them Steve was there, the earnest smile he had ever seen on his lips.

“Let me,” he mumbled, fond and caring as he had been when he had worked the clasp of the necklace in front of the mirror in Bucky’s stateroom. He slipped every nacre button out of its eyelet, and as he uncovered fragment by fragment of skin, he hurried to drop open-mouthed kisses wherever he deemed necessary.

“Steve,” Bucky choked when he got to his navel, pink tongue darting out, teeth scratching gently against his abdomen.

He looked up, red-cheeked and heavy-lidded, his chin resting just above the hem of his trousers. “Wanna stop?” he asked, carefully.

“Stop?!”

It was supposed to come out a lot more composed, but the question got yanked out of his chest in a strangled sound.

Steve chuckled. “I’m gonna try something,” he flushed from head to toe, as he pronounced the words, but he was sporting a determined expression. A man with a plan.

Before Bucky could realize, he was naked from the waist down, the fabric of his trousers and undergarments yanked down and then forgotten in a heap on the floor together with his shoes. Steve was kneeling on the floor, his hands arranging Bucky’s legs on his shoulders, and God, if he had thought he’d been exposed, before, on that divan in his suite, it was nothing compared at what he was feeling in that moment. His heart was thrumming in his chest, threatening to crack it open and Steve was between his legs, clothes still on, traitorous mouth sucking bruises where his thigh met his hip.

_It is dirty, it is humiliating for a gentleman_ , an unwanted voice whispered in the back of Bucky’s head and he squeezed his eyes shut when Steve’s breath caressed his cock, right before…

“Wait,” Bucky croaked and Steve pulled back, his hands still curled around his hips, his thumbs moving in soothing circles against his protruding bones.

He looked at him expectantly.

“It’s, ah, y-you don’t have to do it,” he babbled. “You don’t… if it’s not… proper.”

A quirk of amusement colored for a second Steve’s expression but when Bucky glowered at him, he schooled it to more neutral patience.

“Bucky,” he said, low and throaty, and God, Bucky was just trying to be _decent_. “Does it seem like I don’t want this?”

Bucky took in a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling. Steve was still between his legs, his hands still caressing him, Bucky’s knees still hunched over his shoulders and this was the most embarrassing conversation he had ever had in his life.

“I don’t want you to think I’m expecting this from you because you are from a lower social class,” Bucky finally blurted out, eyes pointed at the ridiculous rose in the upper right corner of the cabin.

“Bucky,” Steve said again, sweet and fond, and Bucky’s felt stupid and naïve. “Buck, please look at me.”

He took a deep breath and looked down. Steve’s cheeks were red and his eyes were bright and Bucky knew – oh, Bucky just knew he would never be able to get over him.

“Thank you,” he said, earnestly, and shyly nuzzled his thigh, a soft smile on his lips. “I appreciate it. But I really, really want to do this very dirty and very... unproper thing and also much dirtier and more unproper things to you.”

Bucky flushed and opened his mouth and then closed it because he wasn’t sure what he could possibly answer to that.

Steve smiled, jokingly. “May I proceed, m’lord?”

That sent a jolt of electricity through his body and Bucky moaned when Steve laid an open-mouthed kiss against the side of his cock. It wasn’t like anything he had ever experienced. Steve’s mouth was wet and burning hot and completely different from the rough palm of his – or anybody’s – hand. He was keeping his hips still against the upholstery of the seat and Bucky was very grateful and very frustrated.

He didn’t know where to put his hands, his chest heaving up and down as Steve welcomed the tip in that sweet wetness, tongue flat and teeth covered, and experimentally bobbed his head up and down. Bucky bit forcefully at his closed fist, teeth digging in the flesh, leaving red half-moons against creamy skin. Steve raised his head and Bucky mourned the loss, eyes darting down, and another rush of hotness ran through him because Steve looked just… completely disheveled, hair mussed and turgid lips and sweat covering his face like a layer of polish.

“Don’t hold back on my account,” he said smartly, and dived back down, hands moving behind his thighs, lifting his hips up and Bucky slipped against the leather seat, fingers blindly grasping the edge and Steve– oh sweet Lord, Steve was nibbling and suckling at the tender skin of his thigh, his nose pressed against the crease of– Bucky shouted when he felt him going even further, his thumbs leaving small oval bruises on the soft meat of his–

“Jesus Christ!”

And no, Bucky had never been a very good Christian.

Steve thrust his tongue _in_ , clearly happy with the outcome of his bold peregrinations, lapping and pushing and prodding at the soft, reddened skin.

Bucky was going crazy.

His brain was shutting down.

When Steve chose to forfeit his hold on the back of his thighs to curl his fingers around Bucky’s cock Bucky’s legs went taut and his foot bumped against the strange console on the other side of the car and something started to buzz and Bucky couldn’t care less because Steve was– and he was– and this was going to end pretty soon, wasn’t it?

But before he could embarrass himself further, Steve stopped abruptly, pulling back and wiping his chin – _wiping his chin_ – and Bucky groaned, somewhere between unpleased by the sudden interruption and exceedingly aroused.

“Bucky,” Steve said and Bucky really wished he didn’t look like – well, like someone who was doing very nasty things until a moment before because it was really difficult to strike up a conversation.

“What,” he deadpanned, breathless, his fingers twitching with the desire of tangling at the back of Steve’s head and shoving him back down.

“I think we’re flying.”

_Of course we are!_ Bucky wanted to snap. _We are a thousand feet over the Atlantic in an airship!_ But then he looked out of the window and realized. The stacks of suitcases and boxes looked much… shorter.

The car was buzzing.

They were hovering.

In the air.

His jaw fell.

The car was flying.

“Holy cow.”

After a second, Steve burst into a fit of laughter and Bucky looked down at him, a blush spreading on his cheeks and on his chest and – oh he was as much a full-body blusher as Steve.

It lasted around eight seconds. A painful, long squeaking sound came from somewhere in the front of the car and then a sobbing wheeze and they slammed back on the ground with a crash of broken suspensions.

They looked at each other, flabbergasted. And then they were both laughing and Steve was climbing back Bucky’s body and was kissing his shoulder and his neck and his cheek and his forehead – dry, almost chaste kisses, just a peck of lips, and then _he_ was hovering, a shy smile on his lips and Bucky’s face cupped in his hands and Bucky was grasping at his biceps, looking up at him.

“Is it okay if I kiss you?” Steve asked, sheepishly, and Bucky felt himself blush once more – he must have been the color of a very ripe tomato, at that point.

It felt surreal, being asked something like that after what Steve had been doing until a moment ago, but Bucky knew why he was asking and his heart was just speeding up again, blood singing in his veins. Instead of answering he pressed a kiss against Steve’s lips, hands grabbing at his arms and his shoulders and his back until he managed to take his threadbare shirt out of his trousers, trying hard in the impossible task of taking it off and keep kissing him. When he finally succeeded, Steve’s hair was more similar to a nest than anything else. Sweaty locks fell on his forehead and shot up in every direction, he looked just out of a tornado. Bucky instinctively wiped his face with the shirt still clutched in his hand, taking off soot and sweat and – and he blushed again again again – spit.

He dropped the shirt and took a second to look at Steve.

His shoulders were massive, the muscles of his arms defined, lean, beautiful. A reddish-blond peach fuzz covered his remarkable chest, trailing down his abdomen, disappearing under the fabric of his trousers. Bucky hadn’t even noticed he was following the path with his fingers until he found himself unbuttoning the slacks and pushing them down, below the plump curve of his buttocks, together with his underwear.

“Take these off,” he whispered, unable to look away.

Steve did, cheap wool poling at his feet as he balanced himself with one hand at the top of the backseat, near Bucky’s head. He stepped out of them, kicking off his shoes and then he propped himself up, a knee leaning beside Bucky’s thigh.

“This is a tight fit,” he mumbled, absent-mindedly, when he bumped the back of his head against the roof of the car.

“You say this _now_ ,” Bucky retorted, eyes glued to Steve’s dick, curved against his stomach.

Steve succumbed to giggles once more and Bucky fast followed him, unable to take anything seriously anymore.

They kissed, quick pecks and longer, sultrier exchanges, hands exploring their bodies, lingering where they were more sensitive, red scratches on pale skin as their hips moved lazily, sweat easing the friction. When did the separating glass when back up? They were boiling in that thing.

“Steve,” Bucky murmured when the contact started to feel too much and not enough at the same time.

“Mh?” he hummed, eloquently, nibbling at the soft spot behind Bucky’s ear.

“I want you to…” he took a deep breath, God this was hard. “I want you to…”

Steve pulled back, eyes searching. “Yeah?” he asked, cupping Bucky’s jaw with his hand. “Y-you want me to…”

“Yes,” Bucky blurted. “If you are… if, ah, you… It would be a pity to, uh, let your hard work downstairs go to waste.”

Steve snorted and Bucky followed him suit and they were a complete disaster, weren’t they?

“Okay,” Steve said, once he managed to gather back his composure. He turned back towards the console. “Let’s see if there is something we can…” he pressed a random button and the two additional seats slammed down violently. “Okay, not that,” he babbled, embarrassed, and pushed a few more, totally randomly – the doors slammed open and then shut, the vases in the corners gave up, dangling upside down and covering them in thorn-less roses, a wheezing huff of fresh hair started to blow out of a gilded vent on the ceiling – until, finally, a compartment snapped open from underneath the seat. They exchanged a glance and Steve shrugged.

Inside, there was the strangest collection of rubbish Bucky had ever seen. Among other things, a comb and a pocket mirror, a revolver, a knife, a bottle of perfume shaped like a flower and–

“That.”

Bucky pointed at an orange tin with a smiling dashing man painted on. Steve picked it up, eyes narrowing to read it.

“Pomade?” he asked.

Bucky shrugged, cheeks aflame. “It’s slick.”

The right corner of Steve’s lips curled up cheekily and Bucky’s heart lost a beat.

“Alright,” Steve said, kicking the compartment shut and opening the little jar. Bucky shivered when he dipped his fingers inside, nerves peeking up from a dark place in his mind. Fear took the place of arousal. Did he really want to do this? If he did this, it would really mean he was… He exhaled, lips puckered.

But he was. He was and it was useless to deny it. He wanted this. He wanted Steve. He wanted _Steve_. He wanted to belong to him completely. Mind, body, soul. He wanted to always remember how he had felt that night with all the awkwardness and the laughter and the searing desire in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m no expert, Buck,” Steve said, a little sheepishly. “So, let’s start easy, mh?”

Bucky nodded and Steve spread the pomade on his palm before wrapping his hand around Bucky’s dick, pumping it up and down, taking it back to full hardness. Bucky grunted, his eyes closing, hips lazily following Steve’s movements. This was good. This was easy. He ran his fingers along Steve’s jaw, down his neck, and to his nipples. Steve whimpered when he did, sensitive and responsive and Bucky leaned in, curious, circling his right one with his tongue.

Steve’s hold on Bucky’s slackened and his breath hitched. Bucky looked at him, surprised and Steve laughed shakily. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Delicate.”

Bucky smiled, feeling uncharacteristically proud, and kissed his chest above his heart. “Nothing to be sorry for,” he answered, and went back to his ministrations, taking his time to lick and suck and nibble, testing Steve’s reactions, basking in his pleasure.

When Steve arranged himself between Bucky’s thighs he almost didn’t notice, busy as he was in teasing him. The pressure of his slick fingers behind his balls, oh that he definitely felt. His neck snapped back, eyes widening, and Steve’s hand was hidden somewhere between their bodies.

“Look at me,” Steve said, not for the first time, and Bucky obeyed, Ocean eyes in limpid, placid pools, warmth spreading in his body, and Steve pushed a finger in.

Bucky had never– he had never–

“Touch yourself,” Steve said, and Bucky groaned his assent, unable to resist, his hand running to his cock, moving swiftly up and down.

It felt good. Distracting. Good.

Steve added another finger after a few moments, his mouth eating up Bucky’s slightly displeased noises. It wasn’t exactly painful – well, he supposed that since having an arm wrenched from his body his definition of pain had become quite relative, but yet – it was just… strange. Unfamiliar. Steve kissed him, his left hand in Bucky’s hair and his elbow pointed against the backseat not to lose his balance and kept moving his fingers, opening him up.

“Get a move on, Rogers,” Bucky babbled, his sticky hand going from himself to Steve, caressing him, jerking him off without any particular rush.

Steve kissed his temple and added more pomade, fingers digging deeply in the tin. Bucky felt empty for a second, and was that… wasn’t that… but then Steve pushed back in with three fingers, artist fingers, fine but calloused and roughened by work. He adjusted the position of his wrist, lips quirked in concentration, and suddenly he curled his digits just so and then, _then_ Bucky honest-to-God shouted because – bless His Majesty the King, what was _that_?

Steve was looking at him with a dumbfounded expression. “Buck?”

“Do that again,” he panted, slapping his hip idly.

“Do what?”

Steve seemed completely at loss.

“ _That!_ ” Bucky urged, because what else could he say? “I don’t know, you are the expert!”

Steve stared at him, mouth ajar and eyes wide. “Expert? I’ve never…”

“Jesus Christ, Steve, shut up and keep doing what you were doing!”

And Steve shut up. And went back doing what he was doing.

After thirty seconds or thirty hours, Bucky was a whimpering mess.

Steve was kissing him – his throat, his chest, his face, wherever he could get his lips.

“I’m… Steve, please,” Bucky begged, half gone. He had no idea how much more he could resist.

“Yes,” Steve agreed and this time when his fingers left Bucky’s body he really, actively, unashamedly growled his displeasure.

“I’m here, Buck.”

Bucky forced his eyes open – he wanted to see, he wanted to _see_. Steve smeared a glob of pomade on his cock and Bucky tried not to laugh hysterically because they were using Murray’s _pomade_ as _slick_ to commit _sodomy_ in Howard Stark’s _flying car_ and he shouldn’t feel this thrilled about it.

Steve looked up at him, eyes the color of the Mediterranean and rosebuds on his cheeks and those pink, swollen lips and he heaved Bucky’s left leg on his massive shoulder and he was just gorgeous. And then he pushed in, helping himself with a waxy hand and Bucky felt as all the breath had been taken from his lungs. His spine flexed and he bumped the back of his head against the windowsill and Steve was whispering sweet nothings in his ear and God it was _a lot_.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he managed to gasp because Steve looked terrified that he had done something wrong and there was nothing wrong at all, like at all, just… it was so intense.

He brushed the blond bangs off Steve’s eyes tangling his fingers in his hair and dragging him down for a kiss. And Steve melted in his embrace and his hips started moving rhythmically, shallow first and then deeper and deeper.

_Yes, yes, yes._

Bucky gasped when Steve’s fingers wrapped around his cock, jerking him off, following the rhythm of his thrusts, and his metal hand slammed against one of the windows and the sharp noise was quickly followed by an ominous crack and they both stopped, necks snapping up. A fracture was cutting in half the glass.

Bucky stared at Steve.

Steve who was–

“Oh my God, stop looking so smug!” he hissed, flushing badly, and Steve kissed him, drowning a laugh in his mouth, his hips grinding and humping until he managed to resume the rhythm – hands and loins and open mouth kisses. Steve was _diving_ into him, in the same way in which he had enthusiastically shoved his face between his legs before, short breaths and strangled moans and Bucky had never felt like this in a million years.

How was he supposed to believe that something so good could be wrong?

Unsurprisingly, he came first, mind-blown and overwhelmed and incredulous and Steve’s pupils blew when he saw the mess on his chest and groin and Howard Fucking Stark’s upholstery and he grasped at Bucky’s thigh, fingers leaving bruises, snapping his hips forward one, two, three times, Bucky going all slack and _oh too much too much too much_ until he finally collapsed on him, choking on his own moans, hot and wet and– _God_.

Bucky was trembling. They both were, breath ragged and eyes half-closed and Bucky didn’t want to move, he didn’t want the contact to break. How was he supposed to go back to normal?

They stayed like that until Bucky felt Steve shivering.

“Steve,” Bucky said, weakly, concern seeping through. “Steve, you are trembling.”

“I’ll be alright,” he answered, voice rough, lips moving against Bucky’s chest. “I can hear your heart beating,” he whispered, and he sounded almost dreamy.

Bucky closed his eyes, fondness and… and _love_ flowing into him like a balm on a wound. He tangled his fingers in Steve’s damp hair, massaging his scalp. “Are you cold?” he murmured, half asleep.

“No,” Steve’s breath was warm, everything was very warm. “’t was just intense.”

Bucky hummed in agreement. “You tell me.”

Steve snickered and moved and then his chin was propped on Bucky’s sternum and Bucky _knew_ he was looking at the cracked, foggy glass.

“Stop looking so smug,” he mumbled.

“How do you know I look smug? Your eyes are closed.”

“I just know.”

“Bucky?”

“Mh?”

“Don’t fall asleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Murray's pomade was a popular brand of pomade. Don't do this at home, kids.


	12. Hard to starboard (April 14th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve turned towards him, threw a quick glance around them and when he made sure they were completely alone he leaned in and pressed a fierce kiss on Bucky’s lips. Bucky didn’t hear the shout and the three rings of the lookout bell registered as something fuzzy and distant in the back of his head, he barely wobbled and smiled against Steve’s lips when the wind apparently pushed the airship brusquely to the right and just grasped at Steve’s arms when they stabilized again.   
> But when the Titanic hit the iceberg, oh that he felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things, quite literally, precipitate.

Bucky fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes Steve was shaking him, a little smile on his lips, and he was dressed in his old clothes. He also looked more or less clean.

“I found some water,” he said and Bucky noticed he was covered with Steve’s coat, up to his shoulders.

He hummed, sitting up, and grimaced at the general soreness, the coat pooling on his lap. He looked down and his grimace became a scowl. Steve cleared his throat and handed him a wet rag, the tip of his ears very pink. Bucky looked at it, then back up at Steve’s constipated expression.

“Is that a polishing rag?” he asked, and he sounded so rough, like someone coming out of a sore throat. “For the car?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “It’s clean, Your Majesty.”

Bucky took it because if he had to choose between sticky and gross and less sticky and gross there was no choice at all. He started from his face, wiping away the oily sensation of uncleanness. Steve had his back on him and was climbing down the car, as discreetly as his admirable bulk allowed. Bucky blushed, grateful for the moment of privacy. He cleaned up, fingers brushing of his sensitive skin, head feeling dizzy and overworked. How long had he been sleeping? He dressed in his old clothes, trying not to linger on the rather unpleasant smell and then proceeded to roughly run the rug on the ruined upholstery. He blushed when he noticed that the windows were still clouded with condense, the print of his metal hand – and the crack – quite obvious on the poor glass. He raised a hand to wipe it away, but something primordial and animalistic roared in the pit of his stomach in protest and he left it there, undeniable proof of what had just happened.

He pocketed the tin of Murray’s pomade because he couldn’t just leave it there and snatched Stark’s comb and mirror from the small compartment, before closing it shut with his foot. When he jumped out of the car, Steve was fiddling with a… was it a pocket watch?

“Your coat,” Bucky said and Steve smiled gratefully, the small object falling easily in the pocket of his trousers. He put on the coat, his shoulders relaxing visibly.

Bucky walked in front of him, comb in hand. “Come here, you look like a madman,” he mumbled, and started brushing his shaggy hair back.

It was sweet and intimate and Steve looked at him with such intensity Bucky started to feel his knees turn into jelly. When he finished, Steve took the comb from his hands and wordlessly repaid the favour, going through the tangles in Bucky’s curls one by one.

“You think they are still looking for us?” Steve asked, and his eyes briefly flickered towards the door they had come through, before going back on a particularly nasty knot. Bucky feeling a little more human in his filthy clothes.

“I don’t think so. They would have found us by now.”

Steve finished combing his hair and stepped back, admiring his handiwork. “I knew you were trouble.”

Bucky huffed a laugh, elbowing him. “Let’s go up. I heard the Captain had a surprise for tonight.”

When they walked out on the well deck, they immediately noticed something wasn’t quite right. Nobody was around, and that was definitely normal since it was chilly and humid and the temperature had dropped considerably since the afternoon, but also…

“We are damn close to water,” Steve said, peeking overboard, squeezing past a rope ladder.

They had dropped down considerably, the huge propellers of the ship cutting the air dramatically, the extremity of the blades seemingly brushing the surface of the water. It was a visual effect, obviously, they weren’t that close, but the bulk of the airship together with the powerful driving force of the turbines created a hypnotizing effect on the water, slipstream after slipstream like the brushes of a painter. Bucky raised his eyes to the upper decks. The lights were turned on in the officers’ promenade, and the sounds of a get-together managed to get right down to them, despite the noise caused by the overworked propellers. Bucky leaned forward: the masthead and the all-round lights were all cinematographically directed to the creative slipstreams.

“So, this is what he must have meant,” he mumbled.

“What?” Steve looked preoccupied. “Aren’t we too close to the water?”

Bucky shrugged, he didn’t know much about Stark’s masterpiece, he hadn’t had the time to discuss it properly with him. “I’m not sure,” he answered, sincerely. “This afternoon I overheard the Captain and Stane talking about a surprise,” he nodded towards the promenade. “They must have organised a party or something to show off.”

“It doesn’t seem safe,” Steve frowned. “Aren’t the winds… different, closer to the sea?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, but I’m sure Stark knows what is happening,” he looked down again, elbows pointed on the bannister. “It _does_ look pretty.”

They stayed still for a bit, looking at the waves opening up like the Red Sea when Moses had run from Egypt, white foam on the dark black ocean, cuts like the drawings left on the ice by the blades of a skater, trails like tears on round cheeks, furrows like the handiwork of a plough, wrinkles like the skin of an old woman. The Titanic looked like a giant whale leaping from the water, but her leap was indefinitely crystallized in the moment of highest tension.

Bucky wondered if they stayed there, in that limbo between upstairs and downstairs, between Bucky’s life and Steve’s life because neither of them knew what it was going to happen now. What was Bucky going to do? Renounce his life, abandon his family, forget everything Alexander had ever done for him to run away with Steve? Only thinking about it was preposterous. And yet. And yet two days before Bucky had almost thrown himself out of the ship because of a life already lived and Steve had dragged him back in and at the same time dragged him into a whirlwind of emotions he had never felt before. Steve made him feel so happy, so understood. They were from different worlds, different planets, and yet he got him with a glance, he made his heart thump in his chest like a maiden’s on her wedding night. Bucky felt like himself when he was with Steve, not like someone he had to be, but just like someone who was, who existed, with his flaws and his qualities.

Steve made him feel right.

What was he supposed to do?

“I can smell ice,” Steve said, almost sleepy, his mouth mashed against his crossed arms, on the gunwale.

Suddenly, Bucky realised that Steve hadn’t slept.

“Come on, soldier,” he said, tugging his elbow. “Let’s go back to your cot.”

Steve turned towards him, threw a quick glance around them and when he made sure they were completely alone he leaned in and pressed a fierce kiss on Bucky’s lips. Bucky didn’t hear the shout and the three rings of the lookout bell registered as something fuzzy and distant in the back of his head, he barely wobbled and smiled against Steve’s lips when the wind apparently pushed the airship brusquely to the right and just grasped at Steve’s arms when they stabilised again.

But when the Titanic hit the iceberg, oh that he felt.

He lost his balance, his back hitting the bannister and Steve stumbled too, squishing him, his hands curling instinctively around Bucky’s waist to sustain him. They looked at each other, bewildered and against Bucky’s back the bannister was shaking, the floor was quaking, the shrouds vibrating and the chains tinkling.

“What the hell?” Steve asked, rhetorically and Bucky pushed him aside, walking towards the centre of the bridge, beyond the rusty coloured sails. His eyes went wide in astonishment. The foresail was completely torn and was flapping uselessly behind its mast. Beyond it, a mountain of ice blocked out the sky at starboard, it was enormous and so close and–

“Get back!”

Steve grabbed his hips, yanking him back, and a second after a lumpy appendage hit the topmast and chunks of ice were falling on the deck like a landslide, crashing on the hardboard, exploding like cannonballs.

The second impact was even more violent. The starboard propeller emitted a long screeching sound, like a scream in the night and Bucky knew, just knew, that the blades had hit the ice and were uselessly trying to cut through it.

The airship wobbled dangerously, tilting towards port at least thirty degrees. Steve and Bucky tumbled and slipped, Bucky’s head hit the railing and he hissed in pain as Steve crashed against him, cutting out his breath.

“Blimey, Rogers, you’re heavy,” he gasped, coughing and choking on air, as it flew back in his lungs.

“Fuck, sorry, sorry,” Steve’s hand ran immediately to the back of Bucky’s head and his shoulders sagged in relief when he saw that there was no blood.

“Thick skull,” Bucky tried to smile.

“Headstrong,” Steve amended and got back on his feet, offering his hand.

Bucky let him help him up. The airship was still swaying dangerously, ominous shrieks and squawks coming from the back on starboard. They weaved their way through the fragments of ice on the deck and leaned over the starboard rail, looking backwards.

“Looks okay,” Steve said, tentatively but Bucky shook his head.

“One of the blades is damaged,” he said, squinting to catch a better glimpse of it. “And the foresail is gone. I have to talk to Stark.”

He rushed up the stairs to the B-Deck, Steve on his tails. They walked past a group of men, talking excitedly about what just happened.

“You know how to fix this?” Steve asked.

Bucky smiled fondly. “I wouldn’t be so optimistic. But maybe I can give him a hand.”

“You like physics,” Steve said, half a question, half a realisation. “You told me so.”

Bucky pushed a door open, zigzagging through people who were sticking their head outside, curious. “Yes,” he answered. “Just an amateur, though.”

They walked past Lord Astor, who was pushing for information from a pre-programmed automaton that had no conscience of what just happened and avoided the curious gaze of Colonel Phillips, who didn’t look as bothered as he should. In the far-right corner, a small group of people was talking in hushed tones. Bucky spotted Stane and Captain Chadwick and a couple of other officials he didn’t know. He slowed his pace.

“…hy have we stopped?” Stane was asking, annoyed, a cigar in his hand and his white tie askew. They had probably both just left the officials promenade.

“We've struck ice,” the Captain answered, tightly.

“Well, do you think the airship is seriously damaged?” Stane insisted. “Where’s Stark? He was here until a second ago.”

The Captain ignored the questions and turned towards the other man. “Do you think you can shore up? In case of landing on water?”

Bucky heard Steve’s breath hitch but he kept walking, trying to be inconspicuous as possible. They couldn’t linger too much, or they would notice they were eavesdropping.

“It depends on how much time we have,” was the last answer Bucky managed to get before he pulled open the door towards the officers’ staterooms. They walked past the elevators and the staircase.

Stark must have run to his blueprints.

“Bucky,” Steve said, eerily calm. “That sounded serious.”

“That’s why we’re going to Howard,” Bucky answered, turning a corner, and stopped abruptly. The door of his own suite was open and Rumlow was standing right at the beginning of the corridor.

He spotted them immediately. A shark smile opened on his face. “My Lord. We were looking for you.”

Bucky clenched his jaw and raised his chin. “Move, I have to get to Mr. Stark’s quarters.”

“Mr. Stark,” Rumlow looked at him and then at Steve, considering. They were completely dishevelled and probably reeked of a wide range of nasty things. “I am afraid it is impossible.”

“Move,” Bucky repeated, jaw tight, and Rumlow raised his eyebrows but did indeed turn on one side, allowing them passage.

Bucky took a deep breath when he felt Steve’s fingers pressing briefly against the small of his back, as he squeezed his way past Rumlow, plastered against the wall. He couldn’t help but peek inside the sitting room, though, and stopped in his tracks when he recognised the Master-at-arms, a couple of automata whom he didn’t recognise and Alexander Pierce standing in the centre of a room that was clearly being… searched?

Bucky stopped.

“What’s happening here?” he asked, eyebrows furrowed.

Pierce turned towards him, “James,” he said, gravelly. He didn’t seem surprised to see him, nor he did seem particularly preoccupied for the fact that he had disappeared for several hours. “Something serious happened.”

“Yes,” Bucky answered automatically. “I am going to Howard to discuss…”

“Two things very dear to me have disappeared this evening,” Alexander cut him off, looking at him with disappointment. “Now that one is back...” his grey eyes lingered on Bucky for a long instant and he felt his cheeks go aflame. “... I have a pretty good idea where to find the other,” his icy gaze moved towards Steve, who stiffened.

Bucky opened and closed his mouth, at loss.

Alexander flicked his fingers and nodded towards the Master-at-Arms. “Search him.”

The burly man didn’t make him repeat himself and immediately walked to Steve, yanking him aside. “Take your coat off, son.”

Before Steve could react – to protest or to obey – the two unknown automata sided him and started yanking his coat down his arms.

Bucky had no idea what was happening. “What are you doing?” he asked, stepping towards Alexander that was looking at him like he had greatly failed him. “We are in the middle of an emergency, what’s going on?”

“Is this it?”

Bucky turned back and his jaw fell. Dangling from the Master-at-Arms right hand was the Heart of the Ocean, in the other, Steve’s grey coat.

“I am afraid so,” Alexander said, looking terribly distressed.

Bucky was stunned.

Steve looked outraged. “This is horseshit!” he roared. “Bucky, don’t you believe it!”

As the automata proceeded to handcuff him, Bucky blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what was happening. “He couldn’t have.”

“Of course, he could,” Brock was back in the room, hands deep in his pockets. “He must have memorised the combination when you opened the safe,” his eyes flickered towards Steve’s drawings, still scattered on the tea table together with his pencils.

“Easy enough for a professional,” Alexander declared, sighing deeply and pushing a glass of something amber coloured and undoubtedly strong in Bucky’s hand.

“A professional,” he repeated, flatly, staring as Rumlow retrieved the necklace and placed it back inside its empty case. “No, he… he was with me the whole time.”

Had there been a thud when Steve’s coat had fallen on the floor of the car? Was the coat uncharacteristically heavy when he had covered Bucky with it when it had pooled around his naked hips?

“Maybe he did it while you were putting your clothes back on,” Alexander whispered gravelly, coldly at his ear, a step behind him, so that he and he alone could hear it.

Bucky felt the humiliation run to his cheeks.

“They put it in my pocket,” Steve growled, fighting against the hold of the automata.

“It’s not even your pocket, pal,” Brock pointed out, revealing a label right above the internal pocket of the jacket. “Property of S. E. Lang.”

The Master-at-Arms nodded. “That was reported stolen today.”

Steve closed his eyes, head falling down. “I just borrowed it,” he hissed through his teeth, anger seeping out from every syllable. “I was gonna return it.”

“An honest thief,” Alexander said with a little, deprecating smile and took a sip of whisky from a glass not at all different from the one Bucky was keeping in a slack hold.

Steve turned towards Bucky, gaze looking to interlock with his, imploringly. “You know I didn’t do this, Bucky. You know it.”

Bucky shook his head, disbelieving. On one side he had Steve, whom he had met two days before, caught quite literally with his hand in the cookie jar, on the other, Alexander Pierce, his father’s lifelong partner, who had helped him and sheltered him when he was at his lowest. And yes, Alexander could be hurtful and strict and sometimes even cruel but he had always had Bucky’s family’s interests at heart and Bucky had always been… difficult. While Steve… what did he know about Steve, after all? He knew that he was homeless and without a penny, he knew he was an artist and that he lived in the moment. And he had… he had opened his heart to him and he had bared his soul and… God, he had given him everything.

He shrank away as the automata dragged a still struggling Steve outside, the Master-at-arms following.

“James, son– ”

Bucky couldn’t hear it. “I have to find Howard,” he said, strangled, and he pushed Rumlow aside as he crossed the threshold, walking fast towards the chartroom.

There were bigger fish to fry. He couldn’t… he couldn’t think…

The ship was wobbling again and Bucky slammed against the wall with his good shoulder. He bit his lip to suppress a groan and fastened his pace.

He couldn’t think about the way in which Steve had looked at him adoringly, as he clasped the necklace closed; he couldn’t think about Steve disappearing inside Alexander’s room, the Heart of the Ocean in his hand, supposedly putting it back to its place; he couldn’t think about Steve laughing and wheezing as they run through the corridors like children and Steve kissing him in the boiler room and Steve grasping at him and suffocating moans in his neck and… And the Heart of the Ocean was in his _pocket_. How stupid Bucky had been? How naïve?

When he slammed the map room door open, his head was buzzing.

Howard had his back to the threshold, his shoulders still clad in the white tie he must have worn at the captain surprise party. His hands, leaning heavily on one of the blueprints spread in front of him, were shaking.

“The access to this room is restricted,” stated the automaton stationed beside the door, a metallic arm snapping up to prevent Bucky from entering.

Howard turned and let go of a deep breath. “Oh, Barnes. Let him in, Jarvis.”

“Yes, sir,” the automaton answered, waving him graciously in.

Bucky walked on the other side, slowly, trying to make sense of the fact that Howard wasn’t surrounded by an army of officers and attendants.

Jarvis closed the door.

“This is most unfortunate, James,” he said, the tight smile doing nothing to cover the fact that he was as pale as a sheet.

Bucky brought his hands to his hips. “How long till the starboard propeller gives up?” he asked, straight to the point.

Stark looked up, impressed. “How…?”

“I was on the deck when it impacted. I heard the blades crashing against the ice, at least one of them was in bad shape twenty minutes ago, cannot be better now.”

If Howard was dazzled by Bucky’s straightforwardness or by his dishevelled state, he didn’t show. He just nodded, then looked down. “The wind is not strong enough. We are losing altitude because the starboard propeller keeps shutting down. I made them turn it back on twice, won’t last forever.”

“What about the reactor?”

“Shut down, too unstable.”

Bucky crossed his arms. “You have to land it on water.”

Howard looked at him as if he had just told him the earth was flat. “I cannot… we don’t have time to assess the damage at the keel; if there are holes…”

“Push down the watertight doors.”

“What if there is external damage to more than four compartments? They will fill with water and we will go down like a stone.”

Bucky ran a hand through his hair, looking at the blueprint of the mighty airship, looking for something, anything. The table started to tremble, then, the paperweights that kept the bigger blueprint still started to slip to the right, the entire ship tilting dangerously.

The phone rang. Howard almost yanked it from the wall.

“What? No, restart it. … I know you already did twice, do it again!” he shouted.

“Did you time it?” Bucky asked, low. “How long did it take between every shut down?”

“Twelve, seven, four.”

Bucky took a deep breath. “We’re going down, Howard.”

“I know!” he yelled. “I know,” he added, more quietly.

“Land the airship in water,” Bucky repeated.

“Four compartments,” Howard said, feverishly, as if Bucky wasn’t even there. “She can stay afloat with the first four compartments breached. But not five. Not five. If it there are holes in more than four, she goes down by the head the water will spill over the tops of the bulkheads... at E-Deck... from one to the next... back and back. There's no stopping it.”

Bucky looked down as Howard moved his hands on the blueprint. “The pumps,” he finally said. “If we open the pumps– ”

“The pumps will buy time... but minutes only. If we land the Titanic on water, if there are breaches in more than four compartments, it will founder.”

Bucky tried not to burst into a hysterical laugh. He remembered asking, absent-mindedly, rhetorically if that was the famous unsinkable ship. He remembered Alexander looking at him indulgently, confirming it, saying, _God himself couldn’t sink this airship_. Had it really been less than a week before? So much had happened in the meantime. He had drunk strange cocktails with Howard Stark and he had contemplated suicide and he had had his life saved and he had bared his soul to a stranger and he had danced the grizzly bear in a steerage common room and he had made friends with a group of stokers and he had… destroyed Howard Stark’s fancy flying car. It probably wasn’t the moment to mention that, though.

“Well Mr Stark, you are the gambler here,” the table started to quake again, a couple of knick-knacks on the mantelpiece of the fireplace fell down. Bucky widened his stance instinctively, preparing himself to the side tilt. “Shall we die crashing in the water or shall we drown?”

Howard looked at him for an instant, then yanked the phone from the wall and dialled a number. “Captain Chadwick, we are landing the airship on water.”

Bucky grabbed a bottle of scotch which had fallen down but was still, miraculously intact and took a deep sip, without bothering pouring it in a glass. The alcohol burned his throat pleasantly.

“Yes, sir. … I’ll explain everything once you meet me in the control room. … Launch the SOS. And prepare for evac.”

Stark grabbed his coat and yanked his collar out. For the first time since he had arrived, he looked at Bucky from head to toe. “Damn, Barnes, you look like a tornado has passed through you.”

Bucky paused, took another sip and tried hard not to blush. “Let’s discuss our fashion choices later. I’m going back to my room, put on alert Mr Pierce.”

Jarvis opened the door for them and they walked out, walking in the same direction. “Yes,” Howard agreed. “Warm clothes, I’ll send live vests,” he paused and grabbed Bucky’s elbow before they could go their separate ways. “Remember what I told you about the boats.”

Bucky nodded, a chill running down his spine. “I’ll see you later, Stark.”

Howard nodded. “Take care, Barnes.”

Bucky entered the suite from his room, closing the door behind him. A couple of chairs were upturned, everything that had been on the nightstand or on the tea-table had been knocked over. The doors that separated his room from the antechamber and the antechamber from Alexander’s room were open. There was a soft muttering coming from beyond the opening on the sitting room. Bucky took a deep breath, picking up a shirt. He had a couple of minutes to change, put something warm on, as Howard had said. He had just slipped out of his ruined jacket when he noticed a folder on the ground, a bunch of paper sheets scattered between Alexander’s room and the antechamber. He walked there, brows furrowed. The safe was open and the violent wobbling of the airship must have caused some papers to fall out of it. Bucky picked up the folder and started putting back inside the documents, until– He stopped.

There was his name there.

> Evaluation of the capital value, investments, patrimony and capital costs
> 
> –
> 
> Lord J. B. Barnes, Earl
> 
> Final Report
> 
> by Jasper Sitwell

With a pencil someone, Jasper Sitwell, probably, had scribbled ‘For A. Pierce – Confidential’. Bucky turned the page.

> Contents

  1. > Introduction

  2. > Current data 
>     * Calculation of capital costs
>     * Valuation model
>     * Valuation of intangible assets
>     * Valuation of other assets

  3. > Theoretical considerations 
>     * The conceptual framework
>     * Overview of measurement methods

  4. > South Africa 
>     * Data sources
>     * General situation
>     * Investments in base metals
>     * Investments in precious metals
>     * Investments in energy materials
>     * Investments in minerals
>     * Investments in construction materials
>     * Data and estimation of price per capacity unit
>     * Capital value and capital costs

  5. > Evaluation




Bucky started to flick through the dossier, paper rustling. There was an infinite list of investments and estimates and… and everything with a plus sign right after. Every single one of his accounts and every single property Bucky had. And he owned – he owned a _mine_ in _South Africa_? Since _when_? His jaw fell. All scattered on the pages, notes written by Jasper Sitwell suggested the best ways to keep things from Bucky, how to present him papers to sign, without him knowing exactly what he was signing. Sitwell had written down everything Alexander Pierce may ever need – names of lawyers and politicians that were keen on closing both eyes, the exact amount of money that he would be able to take from each and every of Bucky’s accounts, move it around, then put it somewhere else, so that he never noticed, so that he never suspected that that money was there. It had always been there.

Bucky wasn’t bankrupt.

And Alexander Pierce had lied to him to take control of his fortune.

He felt sick.

How stupid had he been? And how little Alexander had thought of him if the proof of everything was stacked in a safe Bucky had access to? He had believed Bucky would never go through it, and he was right. Bucky had never questioned anything, he had trusted him blindly, he had put everything in his hands because he had thought he wasn’t enough. Not enough prepared for his new role, not enough knowledgeable, not enough skilled. And Alexander had acted so that that particular belief never faltered. He had fed his insecurities, his conviction that he wasn’t able to take care of anything. He had taken advantage of his weaknesses and of his loneliness and of his pain and of his grief.

How did he not notice?

The door opened and Alexander stepped in, one hand to his tie, ready to loosen it, the other holding the velvet blue case with the diamond. Bucky looked at him: he had come back to tell him about the disaster, he had come back to save him. Even after all the ways in which he had infantilised him, even after all the humiliation and the paternalistic tones and Brock Fucking Rumlow. He had always told himself it was for the best, he was his father’s partner, the man who had worked with and for the Barnes family for years, who had been making sure that they would not succumb to the new, too modern century, where old blood was losing more and more importance.

Alexander Pierce looked at him, then at what he was holding in his hand. His expression didn’t falter.

“James, my boy– ”

“This airship,” Bucky interrupted. “Is going down. They are going to land on water in less than five minutes. I urge you to find life vests and to start queueing for lifeboats. In case,” he paused to swallow the lump in his throat. “Of emergency.”

“James,” Pierce smiled one of his placating smiles, leaning the case on the dressing table near the door. He didn’t give any signs that he was alarmed by the situation. “Whatever you think you know, I am sure you have misinterpreted.”

Bucky threw the folder on the tea table, not even looking at the sheets falling everywhere. He walked past him, snatched the case open and grabbed the Heart of the Ocean, its weight familiar in his palm. “Let’s start with taking back one of my properties.”

“Nobody has ever– ”

“If we sink, I suggest you stay alive,” Bucky cut off, as cold as the waters in which they were about to land. “We have much to discuss.”

He turned on his heels, hands trembling, the solid presence of the necklace pressing against his skin.

“Where are you going?” Pierce asked, almost compassionately. “You’ll want to make sure to be near me, James. In case of emergency,” he repeated his words slowly, letting them sink in.

_There are not enough lifeboats._

Bucky would prefer dying rather than spend even one more minute in the same room as Alexander Pierce.

_The appropriate number, I’m sure._

Bucky’s blood ran cold in his veins.

_Steve_.


	13. Not without you (April 15th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky was standing in the threshold, his fancy clothes drenched up to his knees, his face flushed and his hair in disarray. He was holding a… fire-ax and his knuckles were broken and bloody.
> 
> “You punched someone,” Steve said, dumbfounded.
> 
> Bucky nodded, then shrugged, ax going up, then down. “They wanted to drag me back upstairs.”
> 
> “Could you not use your metal hand?”
> 
> Bucky opened his mouth, then closed it. “I’m right-handed?” he offered, weakly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Superheroes will be superheroes.
> 
> Watch out for Canon-typical violence!
> 
> Cameo: Michael Carter.

Day 6 – April 15th, 1912

It wasn’t the first time that Steve ended up in handcuffs. It wasn’t even the first time that he ended up in a makeshift prison waiting for something without knowing what exactly he was waiting for. It was, though, the first time that he managed to get arrested two times in three days. It was the first time in which he managed to get arrested _on an airship_ two times in three days. And it definitely was the first time in which he managed to get arrested on an airship that had struck an iceberg.

He took a deep breath, tugging uselessly at the chain of the handcuffs. It clanged against the water pipe. Oh, yes, it was the first time he was chained to a waterpipe, too.

The automaton which was keeping watch didn’t falter. Steve was pretty sure that it was supposed to act only if Steve attempted something more dramatic, like dislocating his own thumb to slip his hand through the ring of metal. He would very much like to avoid that. The ship wobbled dangerously for the umpteenth time and the automaton readjusted its position to keep standing. Steve looked outside the porthole: the sea looked closer and closer. His heart started beating faster in his chest. Bucky’d been worried, he was in a frenzy to get to Stark. Were they going to land the ship on the water, wait for other ships to reach them? Or maybe Stark had a plan B? Maybe the airship could also sail? He pressed his forehead against the glass – well, this cabin was better than his own, it even had a window – god, the water was close, really close.

And Bucky.

The betrayal in his face when they had found the diamond in Steve’s pocket.

If only he could have talked to him, showed him that he hadn’t done anything…

Everything started shaking. From the outside, a long, rattling noise started to resonate. Steve bumped his forehead against the glass and groaned, jerking away instinctively and losing his grasp on the pipe. His knees gave up in surprise and he gasped when the chain of his handcuffs prevented him from falling on the ground, grinding where the main pipe met a smaller one. Steve grunted as the metal pressed forcefully against his skin, leaving red bruises on his fair complexion. He had just managed to get on his feet again, when a sudden, violent jolt made him crash face-first against the pipe.

His first, irrational thought was: _Fuck, not the nose again_.

Pain.

He slipped again, metal carving skin, and god, his face hurt. Tears were forming at the corners of his eyes as he blindly grasped at the pipe, heaving himself up again. He blinked and shook his head and carefully touched his nose. His fingers were painted red when he looked down. Fuck. They weren’t coated in blood, though, so maybe – maybe – it was not broken. It hurt like hell, though. He looked around: the automaton had fallen on the ground and was trying to get back on its feet. Struck by a sudden inspiration, Steve quickly calculated the distance and thought, well, fuck it. His kick ended up being quite sloppy because of his current predicament, but landed straight on the automaton’s face, making it slam against the corner of the desk. The impact was brutal enough that the typewriter on top of it – which may have been already on the verge of falling off the table because of the jolts of the airship – plummeted on the offended metallic head. The machine let go a whirring sound, then some kind of strange, mechanical cackle and then, apparently, gave in. Steve blinked.

Well, that had been anticlimactic. Stark should really work more on his toys.

The door was still closed and everything seemed eerily calm. Steve took a deep breath and glimpsed outside the porthole. His heart sank. Seawater was grazing the glass.

They had landed on the water.

“Fuck,” Steve whispered. He really had to get out of there.

But how?

He slammed his chained hands against the pipe. “Hey! Is there anybody out there? Help!” he shouted, making as much noise as possible.

Nothing.

Nothing for seconds, and minutes and what was starting to feel like entire lifetimes as Steve kept yelling and slamming his bruised hands against the pipes until his weak lungs started acting up and he had to stop, forehead pressed against the cold metal, air not quite flowing in.

And then came the water.

“This could be bad,” Steve mumbled, climbing on top of the desk, arms wrapping around the pipes for leverage. His heart was hammering in his chest as he desperately tugged at the handcuffs. “Fuck, fuck, help!” he shouted, as the water seeped in, inch after inch, through the door. Out of the porthole, the edge of the sea was barely visible.

Okay, time to dislocate that thumb then.

He had just finished formulating the thought when the door slammed open.

And Bucky was there.

Steve’s jaw fell.

Bucky was standing in the threshold, his fancy clothes drenched up to his knees, his face flushed and his hair in disarray. He was holding a… fire-ax and his knuckles were broken and bloody.

“You punched someone,” Steve said, dumbfounded.

Bucky nodded, then shrugged, ax going up, then down. “They wanted to drag me back upstairs.”

“Could you not use your metal hand?”

Bucky opened his mouth, then closed it. “I’m right-handed?” he offered, weakly.

Silence fell.

Water ran.

And then Steve’s lips twitched and Bucky scrunched his nose and a second after they were both laughing hysterically, Bucky bent in half, leaning against the ax, Steve hugging the waterpipe.

“Dear God,” Bucky breathed out, eyes bright and he was suddenly so close, so close, his arms wrapping around Steve’s shoulders and his mouth pressing kisses wherever he could reach: Steve’s cheeks, his eyelids, his swollen nose. “I’m sorry,” he kept repeating. “I am so sorry. You were right. You were right.”

“I know, I know,” Steve answered, his fingers itching to touch him. “It’s alright. We’re fine.”

Bucky pressed his forehead against Steve’s, collecting himself for one second and Steve took the opportunity to look at him, how tired and weary he looked. “Why the hell do you have an ax with you?” he asked, unable to keep himself from smiling.

Bucky chuckled and his eyelids lifted and Steve could see deep blue through long, dark lashes. “It was in a red flashy box with ‘In case of emergency’ written all over it and I thought, hell if this isn’t an emergency, this could come in handy. Also, I thought that looking like a madman with an ax could avoid more punching.”

Steve shook his head. “You are a wonder, Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky patted him on a cheek gently, fondly. “How did you manage to have your nose broken? And what happened to the automaton?”

“When we landed on water I slammed against the waterpipe,” Steve admitted, his manly pride suffering in a corner of his conscience. Maybe he should have invented a story about a fight with Rumlow, the Master-at-arms and a couple of automata? Well, too late. “And it did that to himself. Mostly, I pushed, the typewriter fell, yadda yadda.”

Bucky bit the corner of his lip to avoid smiling and there was a part of Steve that just wanted to go back kissing him and let Fate do its course, but Bucky was already pulling away, eyes feverishly scanning the room to find a key.

“What happened to the ship?” Steve asked, as Bucky yanked a couple of drawers open and started rummaging through them.

“One of the propellers was damaged by the iceberg,” Bucky answered, water sloshing almost to his knees. “And the sails, well, you saw what happened. Landing on water was the only option,” Bucky’s eyes were hard, his voice strained. “But we are taking in water too quickly,” he took in a deep breath, stopping for a second. “I think the ship is going down, Steve,” he finally said, gravelly, irises like steel.

Steve’s heart sank and this time it wasn’t relief.

Bucky slammed one of the cupboards closed. “It’s not here,” he said, voice strangled. “The bloody key is not here.”

“It’s okay,” Steve said, panic rising. He pushed it down. One of them had to keep it together. “Buck, look at me. You have an ax,” he stretched the chain taut over the steel pipe to make his intentions clear.

Bucky’s eyes widened in horror, but then his expression changed into something more focused, determined. He clenched his jaw and hefted the ax.

And Steve chickened out.

“Wait!” he squeaked. “Wait, try a coupla practice swings.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows, then – honest to God – _smirked_. And. Swung. Hard.

Steve closed his eyes at the last moment.

“Get a grip, Rogers,” Bucky grasped his elbow and yanked.

Steve’s arms fell on both sides of his body. He opened one eye. He still had two hands. And ten fingers. And the chain of the handcuffs was severed in two perfect halves. Steve gaped.

“Don’t look so impressed,” Bucky sounded smug. “Steady hands.”

Steve looked up. “You are a menace.”

“I’ve been told. Let’s go.”

Steve climbed down into the water. “Shit, this is freezing,” he mumbled, dragging his feet.

“Just move,” Bucky said, and for the first time, Steve noticed that he was grinding his teeth to prevent them from chattering.

“Bucky,” Steve said, his brain slowly starting to work despite the cold. “Bucky, we have to go help people. How is the situation upstairs? If this level is submerged…”

“I know,” Bucky said. “We’re going towards steerage.”

Steve looked up at the lights that still placidly illuminated the ceiling. “Are people still working in the boiler rooms?” he asked, quietly. Flashes of the soot-covered faces of his friends appeared in the back of his head. It seemed impossible that he and Bucky had just run into them hours before. Hours from their kisses and touches and soft gasps. It felt like another lifetime.

Bucky stilled, clearly reading between the lines, then started walking again, water sloshing. “I imagine the firemen were given the order to shut the boilers if water started flooding in. The icy water would cause them to explode and you would have noticed if they did, believe me.” Bucky turned on the right and started to climb a staircase. When he stepped on the landing he turned, water dripping from his drenched clothes. “We will find your friends, Steve,” he said, earnest.

And God, Steve wanted to believe him.

“How is the situation upstairs?” Steve asked again, as Bucky led the way through a still not-flooded corridor.

“I’m not sure,” he answered, evasively, looking for signs on the walls. The goddamned ship was a labyrinth.

“Bucky– ”

“I rushed here, Steve, I wasn’t paying much attention. But there are not enough lifeboats, that I know. And all the lifeboats are on the top decks, so first class passengers will get there first, and then second class, and then steerage and finally the crew. I…” he paused, took a deep breath. “There must be something we can do.”

But Steve had stopped dead in the middle of the corridor.

_There are not enough lifeboats._

“What does it mean there are not enough lifeboats?” he asked, feeling as if his voice was being used by someone else.

Bucky finally turned and noticed that Steve had stopped several feet behind. “There aren’t. It’s not illegal for ships not to have them. And we have no time to be outraged over it.”

He walked back and raised a hand, grabbing Steve’s shoulder and squeezing slightly. “We have to go now, Steve.”

Steve blinked once, then twice, the realization of what that entailed falling heavily over him. _There are not enough lifeboats._ Women and children first, of course, and then fathers and whoever had family on board. And then, maybe, just maybe, husbands and fathers traveling alone, traveling to reach their families or to get to America to start working, to provide for their relatives in the Old World. Steve didn’t have anybody. Nobody was waiting for him and nobody depended on him. He looked at Bucky, at his dark blue eyes and his unruly curls and his Cupid-bow mouth. He looked at Bucky and the feeling of his skin under his hands came back to him, the way his own heart had started hammering in his chest when he had seen him for the first time. He looked at Bucky and saw him dancing the grizzly bear and laying on that couch, naked and gorgeous with all his perfect imperfections. They were never going to have more than what they had, but oh, how Steve longed for it. And yet. And yet he had had that, he had had Bucky, even if for so little time, and, yes, he was probably going to die on a stranded airship in the middle of the Atlantic but he had had it all for a handful of glorious hours.

Bucky had a family and Bucky had people who counted on him. And Bucky would have a place somewhere, on one of those goddamned boats because he deserved it and Steve was going to make sure he did.

“Bucky, I–”

But Steve couldn’t finish the sentence because with a loud crash and a shower of splinters the almost invisible, white-painted door on their left literally exploded and someone – or better say several _someones_ – stumbled through, crashing into them. Steve fell on the ground, right on his ass.

“Fuck!”

“Ouch!”

“Smart idea, Dum Dum, now I know where the name comes from!”

“You already knew.”

“Attendez une minute… Steve?”

Steve finally managed to disentangle himself from the mess of limbs and managed to recognize the faces in front of him. “Dernier? Dum Dum?”

They were all there. Dugan and Jim and Frenchie and Monty and Gabe. A lump formed in his throat and Steve had to grasp Bucky’s hand to get back to his feet and collect himself. The door was half-collapsed, just a handful of bigger splinters sadly clinging to the frame. Steve glimpsed behind Gabe, who was closer to it and recognized a passage to the lower decks.

“Where did you come from?”

“Boiler rooms,” Morita said, matter-of-factly. “Because, you know, we work.”

Steve chuffed out a laugh and he wrapped his arms around him in a bone-crushing hug. “We were coming to find you,” he said, letting him go.

“What are those?” Dum Dum pointed at the handcuffs that were still dangling from his wrists and Steve exchanged a quick look with Bucky, who had yet to say a word. He was standing on the side, the smile on his lips tight, if genuine. Time was the essence.

“It’s a long story,” Steve answered emphatically. “We have to move, now.”

Bucky started walking in the same direction as before, his steps sure, his jaw clenched. Gabe reached him and they started to talk quietly. Steve wondered if Bucky was telling him about that was really happening.

“The boiler rooms are sealed,” Dum Dum said, trying to light a damp cigar with a useless lighter. “There is no one left there. The bulkheads are down but we were taking in a lot of water.”

Steve took them all in for the first time: their clothes weren’t less drenched than his and Bucky’s.

“I know,” he nodded. “We hit an iceberg.”

“Have we?” Jim threw Dum Dum a matchbox and he caught it one-handed. “Jeez, Rogers, we didn’t notice the huge chunk of ice that cut in half the bulk.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”

“Not as much as the room filling with water,” said Monty, gravelly. “The situation is bothering, Steve.”

“It is,” he nodded, just as they turned the corner and ended up in Scotland Road, the widest passage of the ship.

Passengers with coats above their nightgowns and small babies in their arms and old battered suitcases in their hands were crowding the passage like refugees, heading aft. Everyone looked confused and out of their depth. Nobody really understood what was going on. Automata were standing on the side, repeating mechanically the standard security procedures. Steve wondered how long would it take for patience to run out and people just starting to kick them in the face to make them shut up.

They walked forward, where the distance among people was less and less and everyone was so pressed that walking forward became impossible. At the end of the corridor, a big, black gate closed the passage, on the other side, two automata and a nervous-looking officer were standing guard. Steve tried to catch Bucky’s eyes, but he was too forward, Gabe on his tail.

“You can’t keep us locked here like animals!” someone in the front shouted and Steve shivered in horror when silence fell and immediately after people started whispering worriedly.

“This ship is bloody sinking!” someone else yelled. “The water in my cabin reached the top bunk!”

The whispering became an anxious buzzing.

They had to act quickly. The General Room was just beyond the door. If they managed to gather people there, they would have space and time to point them in the right direction. Also, the stairs to the deck were steep and the seven of them could control the entering and exit process easily. But the gate looked sturdy.

Steve looked around, feverishly. A few steps behind them there was a wooden bench, bolted to the floor. There were some children standing on it, trying to look up the heads of the grown-ups.

“Que faisons-nous maintenant?” Dernier growled, a cigarette between his lips.

Steve looked back forward and miraculously managed to cross Bucky’s gaze. He raised his eyebrows and titled his head towards the bench, then, towards the gate. Bucky looked confused for a second, then the crinkles on his forehead disappeared and he nodded quietly. God, Steve could kiss him. He turned to whisper something to Gabe’s ear.

“Help me out, Jacques, Dum Dum.”

As they moved towards the bench, elbowing people unapologetically, Steve saw with the corner of his eye that Gabe had reached Morita and Falsworth and they were starting to push people around to clear a path.

Steve grabbed one end of a bench bolted on the floor of the landing and started pulling on it. Understanding immediately, Dugan and Dernier pitched in, until the bolts sheared and it broke free with a loud crashing sound. On the other side of the gate, the lonely officer was stuttering objections. Steve adjusted his grasp on the bench and threw a quick look behind his shoulder. Dum Dum nodded, burly arms wrapped around the other extremity. They moved strategically, the crowd opening like the Red Sea and before they could think too much about it, they ran. The bench rammed into the gate, propelled by their strength. The metal groaned and bent but the lock didn’t give in. The officer started to fiddle with a small, silver pistol, but his hands were shaking too much and he couldn’t get a good hold.

“Again!” Bucky yelled, somewhere on his left and Steve and Dum Dum got a running start and slammed the makeshift ram against the black gate. With a loud bang, it ripped loose from its track and fell outward, narrowly missing the officer and the two automata.

Before the crowd could really realize what had just happened, Steve reached Bucky and Gabe and grasped their elbows, dragging them forward. “Channel people towards the General Room. Block the exits towards the deck.”

They nodded and ran forward and when he turned around, he breathed out in relief when he noticed that the others were already explaining the situation to the growing crowd, guiding it towards the big common room.

Once there, he jumped on one of the tables and cleared his throat. “Everyone!” he yelled. The mob kept talking, asking questions in a variety of languages he couldn’t keep track of. “Hey!” he tried again.

“Shut up!” boomed Dugan and silence fell.

“Alright. Okay. Thanks,” Steve cleared his throat. “So, the situation is dire,” he started.

“No shit!” someone answered, sarcastically.

“The lifeboats are on the top deck,” Steve went on. “Now, women and children first. We want to help. Please, move towards the left side of the room. The left side of the room.”

A group of men in the back started to protest and a couple of them moved towards the closest staircase that led to the top deck coming chest to chest with Bucky. Instinctively, Steve started to climb down but Bucky simply uncuffed his shirt and started folding his sleeve, methodically. The brass and dark iron appeared slowly, as the angry man in front of him sputtered and spluttered. When he arrived at the elbow, Bucky raised his arm. “Stay back,” he said, low and dark, eyes grey and icy.

The brute’s eyes widened and Bucky wiggled his metal fingers, eyebrows raised.

Steve was head over heels for this man.

After that, people started to comply more. They managed to divide the crowd and Steve worked hard to keep his expression even when he separated families almost physically. Inside of him, his heart was breaking. When they finally managed to divide all the people into groups and put Gabe and Monty to control the new arrivals at the only opening towards the main corridor, Bucky reached Steve. When he touched his elbow, Steve quickly looked towards the exit that he was covering, but Dernier was there, glowering to everybody who got too close.

“We have to bring them up,” Bucky said, urgently. “We have already lost too much time.”

Steve nodded, brain working quickly. “Gabe, Monty and Jim will stay here, waiting for more people. Dum Dum and Dernier will take the starboard exit, trying to get people to the upper decks that side, me and you, we’ll go port with another group. Women and children first.”

Bucky nodded and walked swiftly to the men stationed near the exits, Steve did the same with the remaining ones.

Dum Dum clasped a hand on his shoulder and looked at him straight in the eye. “We’ll see you later. Take care.”

Steve nodded, looking at his friends one after the other. Nobody questioned anything, nobody raised their voice to ask why on earth someone should listen to him. Steve looked at their serious faces and nodded once more. “I’ll see you later,” he said, and in his heart, he hoped he was telling the truth.

Steve and Bucky collected the first group, then moved upstairs without saying a word. The door opened and the cold air hit him, freezing in damp clothes on his body. Steve shivered, wishing he still had the stolen coat. They moved quickly along the deck, up towards bow and Steve tried not to think too much about the fact that they were walking downhill. The ship was starting to go down, bow first.

But Steve was strangely calm. He had a job to do. He had made himself responsible for these people.

When they finally reached A-deck, the spectacle in front of them almost made Steve stop in his track and lose his composure. Panic was clearly setting in. A mob of second and first class passengers was pressing on the sides, towards the lifeboats that were dangling from their pulleys like weathercocks. Automata were brandishing the tillers of the boats to discourage a close press of men who looked ready to rush in. Several men were breaking ranks and scurrying forward.

One of the officers pulled out their Webley revolver and aimed it at them. “Get back!” he shouted. “Keep order!”

Steve looked at Bucky, purposefully avoiding to address the group of scared third class women in front of him. Bucky gave him a reassuring nod. _You got this_.

“Sir!” Steve shouted, turning towards the closest officer.

It was a young man, not older than them. His eyes widened as he took in the scared faces of the steerage group. Only the present state of things could justify the fact that he hadn’t noticed them before.

“Sir, we got women and children here,” Steve said, earnestly. “Only women and children.”

The officer looked back at him, scared like everyone else and Steve tried to channel every ounce of determination that he could muster in his expression. “Very well,” he said in a pronounced British accent. “This way. Make way! Make way, women and children!”

Steve tried to smile to every woman and child as they passed him by, hurrying in the direction the officer was leading them.

“There’s more!” Bucky said before he could disappear in the crowd.

The man nodded. “Bring them up.”

Relief flooded Steve as he threw himself in the job, going up and down the stairs so many times he lost count. Bucky was a quiet, steady presence at his side. He was sharp and focused and didn’t miss a beat despite the deep purple circles underneath his eyes. They guided people and they pointed them in the right direction, and Steve couldn’t help but notice that while the black sea was starting to shine of the lights of numerous boats, the number on board was diminishing dangerously. And there were still so many people.

He could only hope that things were going better on the other side.

As more people amassed on the deck, the shouts and the yells and the gunshots in the air grew in number. At some point, Steve made the mistake of looking down, right along the side of the ship. One of the boats, already in the water but still attached to the pulleys, was being pushed aft by the discharge water being pumped out of the ship. It winded up directly under another lifeboat, coming down right on top of it.

The passengers, panicking, shouted to the crew above to stop lowering. Steve heard himself shout too, but it was just automata. Automata were lowering the boats. And they could not understand. Some of the passengers of the first boat put their hands up, trying uselessly to keep the five tons of boat from crushing them. Suddenly, a woman with blonde hair started to cut the aft falls with a knife, while one of the crewmen cuts the forward lines. The lifeboat already in the water drifted out from beneath other just seconds before it touched the water with a slap.

“Steve,” Bucky grasped his arm, dragging him away from the railing. He hadn’t even noticed he had been paralyzed, looking at that, unable to do anything. “Focus.”

“Yes,” he breathed out. “Yes, let’s go.”

He turned towards the closest boats. There was still one taking in passengers, the last group they had found in the General Room was being shepherded forward. Downstairs, Gabe and Monty had instructions to wait a few more minutes in case other passengers showed up.

“There is still a spot!” the officer – Michael Carter was his name, they had learned – yelled. “Anyone?”

Steve looked at Bucky. Bucky who had a family and sisters to take care of. Bucky who was young and fierce and beautiful and with someone home who was waiting for him. Bucky who had for some reason gone back to save him, breaking out of his brainwash. Bucky who deserved to live.

“Here!” Steve shouted, pushing him forward. “He has three sisters under his care, two underage,” he pushed Bucky forward before he could react and he stumbled on his feet, stopping in front of Carter.

“Wha–? No.”

Carter looked from one to the other.

“It’s the truth,” Steve said, earnestly. “A lot of people depend on him. He is a first class passenger. Lord James Buchanan Barnes. It’s the truth. Please. Sir.”

Steve hoped that all of that sounded so incredible – and it was, God it was – that Michael Carter believed him.

“No!” Bucky turned on his heels, angrily, his blue, stormy eyes throwing daggers at Steve.

“Just go!” Steve pleaded, feeling his shoes slip on the dangerously sloped, damp surface of the deck. “Get on the boat.”

“No, not without you!” Bucky barked, open and frantic, desperate savagery coloring his features.

He looked like a painting, Steve thought, his face daunt and deep purple eyebags creasing his features. He looked like a fallen angel, like Cabanel’s _Ange Dechu_ , with his messy curls and that same passion in his scowling expression. And Steve knew that what he was trying to do wasn’t fair, that Bucky was brave and selfless and that he would never leave if people still needed to save themselves. But this was the only option he had to save his life. And Steve wanted to save his life more than anything.

“Isn’t this moving?”

Steve froze.

“Rumlow,” Bucky growled, fury still seeping through. His gaze was now trained behind Steve, over his shoulder, and when Steve twisted his body to follow it, placing himself purposefully in front of Bucky, a wall, a shield between him and the man who had just approached, he found Brock Rumlow standing in front of them, hands on his hips, his coat pushed back enough to show the outline of a holster on his side.

“M’lord,” he said, cloyed. “Will you follow me? Mr. Pierce has an arrangement with an officer on the other side of the ship.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said, stepping out of Steve’s cover, firmly pushing him back. His voice was colder than the Atlantic waters below them. “But I have to decline.”

Rumlow scoffed. “It wasn’t really a question.”

Steve heard more than saw the bullet whistling somewhere near his shoulder before it impacted against the wooden cover of the banister. Somewhere on his left, Michael Carter was shouting something but Bucky had already grasped Steve by an arm and was yanking him towards the closest door. They stumbled down the stairs and Steve realized after a few seconds that they were rushing down the Grand Staircase. As they passed the first landing, the carved cherub at the foot of the center railing exploded.

That man was completely _mental_. That damn ship was sinking anyway, for God’s sake, what did he want to do?

Bucky pulled Steve toward the stairs going down to the next deck. Rumlow fired again, running down the steps toward them. A bullet blew a decorative flower out of the oak paneling behind Steve’s head as they rushed down the next flight of stairs.

Bucky yelled when he slipped on the last flight, his hand still clutching Steve’s forearm and they both tumbled down the last few steps, running straight in the water, fording across the room to where the floor sloped up. Steve’s brain short-circuited at the temperature and instinctively started waving arms and legs to regain some footing. Bucky gasped, re-emerging, and his mouth opened and closed three or four times as he managed to find the floor with his feet.

“Come on,” Steve hissed, teeth clattering. “This way.”

They splashed gracelessly through the water, Rumlow taunting them, not so far behind. The dining saloon in which they had that awkward dinner a lifetime ago wasn’t far and it looked still mostly dry. Another gunshot exploded, big gouts of spray going off near them.

“He’s not a great shot,” Bucky growled, half nerves and half hysterical amusement.

Steve snorted. “Certainly not like you,” he pushed the glass door open and another bullet hit the decorated panel.

“You’ve never seen me shoot,” Bucky retorted and Steve noticed his teeth were clattering furiously. Probably this was his way not to think about the freezing water that was gradually but relentlessly slowing their movements.

“I’ve seen you with an ax.”

Bucky looks at him briefly, amused. “Yeah, should have kept that ax, uh?”

Finally, they emerged from the waist-deep water and scurried over the carpeted floor, avoiding a silver serving trolley that was rolling down the increasingly sloping surface. Over the groans and creaks of the woodwork, Steve heard distinctly when Rumlow splashed into the flooded space behind them.

Okay, smart thinking.

Steve elbowed Bucky and pointed towards a still made table, motioning a ducking movement. He nodded and they kneeled, starting to crawl towards the other side, eyes going back frequently towards the door from which Rumlow was bound to appear any second.

And he did. He was spluttering, teeth bared, feral like an animal, the .45 in is hand, scanning the room.

“I know you’re here.”

The water was following him into the salon, advancing in a hundred-foot-wide tide. The reception room was now a rolling lake, little waves brushing the carpet in eerie caresses. Through the glass doors, it was still possible to see the grand staircase submerged past the first landing. Grotesque groans echoed through the ship. The ceramic dishes and the crystal glasses and the silverware started tingling, bumping one against the other, as the water reached the first tabletops, well-arranged flowers spreading on the edge of the water like rose petals on the veil of a bride.

Bucky tugged at Steve’s sleeve. He pointed at Steve, then at a metal trolley that was wobbling dangerously, covered in ceramics, then at the table behind which they were hidden. Steve shook his head without understanding and Bucky rolled his eyes. He pointed again at the trolley, then his index finger moved swiftly before stopping against the table. Then he pointed at Steve and wiggled index and middle finger to indicate walking. _Bait_. He mouthed.

_Thanks_. Steve mouthed back, sarcastic.

Bucky rolled his eyes again, then he pointed at himself and closed his hand in a fist.

_You wait for the trolley to crash, it will create a diversion. He will walk here, you pop out as bait and I beat the shit outta him_. Steve translated in his head.

Not very sophisticated, but potentially effective.

Steve nodded.

The metal cart, five feet tall and full of stacks of china dishes, started to roll down the aisle between tables, like prompted. Alerted by the noise, Rumlow turned, giving Bucky time so run behind him and duck behind another table. Steve stood still, looking at is as it inevitably gained ground in his direction. He prayed with his whole heart that the ship would not make some sudden movement and deviate its path. Lucky, it didn’t. As Rumlow started advancing in that direction, probably wondering if either Steve or Bucky had pushed it, the trolley hit the table and the stacks of dishes toppled out, exploding across the floor and showering Steve. He scrambled out of the way, out in the open, hissing at the feeling of his skin splitting open where the sharp edges of the shards hit him.

Rumlow spun, seeing him. “There you are!”

He moved rapidly towards him, keeping the gun aimed– and Bucky jumped him, tackling him on the side, sending him crashing through one of the enameled glass dividers. Steve ran towards them, entangled and staggering, Bucky’s flesh hand curled around the fist holding the gun. Steve hesitated: he couldn’t tackle Rumlow without crushing Bucky under his weight. The gun went off once, then twice and Bucky and Rumlow crashed against a table, then toppled in the water. Steve sprung into action then. Rumlow was on his back, Bucky half collapsed on top of him and Steve put all his weight into stomping on the hand still holding the gun. Rumlow roared in pain and Bucky hit him with his metal wrist, the gears clicking and whizzing. Steve kicked away the firearm, which ended up lost somewhere in deeper waters. With an animalistic growl, though, Rumlow pushed away Bucky, who fell, the back of his head hitting the drenched carpet. Steve was on him in a second, preventing him to scramble up. He jammed his knee in his bowel and, as he lunged at him, he punched him right in the solar plexus, doubling him over. When he turned to see how Bucky was, he found him on his feet, his eyes trained on Rumlow. Before Steve could do anything, Bucky’s metal fist curled around the collar of Rumlow’s shirt and slammed him into an ornate column. His left eye was swollen and red, his clothes drenched and in disarray. Bucky looked like an avenging angel.

“You can tell your boss that I prefer dying on this ship than accept from him any kind of help,” he spat the last word out like an insult. “And if you try to harm Steve Rogers once more, I swear to God I will see you at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean if it is the last thing I do,” he slammed him again against the wooden column, which creaked. “This is the second time I threaten you, Rumlow. There won’t be a third.”


	14. Nearer my God to Thee (April 15th, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t look. Look at me, look at me, Stevie, look at me.”
> 
> “I have to,” Steve heard himself croak. “I have to, I should have done more, I should have…”
> 
> Bucky’s lips tightened in a mockery of a smile and his hand moved to the back of Steve’s head and he yanked him forward, hiding his face in the soft, damp skin of his neck. “I’ll do it for you. I’ll look for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost at the end of the line. Pretty angsty chapter.
> 
> Watch out for violence! Nasty stuff happens, like in the movie.

They walked away without looking back, in silence. Steve couldn’t stop wondering what had happened between his arrest and Bucky storming in with an ax, what Pierce had said or done to trigger his reaction. It wasn’t as if Bucky was totally wrapped around Pierce’s little finger, before, but, well, he had believed him when he had accused Steve of stealing. It still stung a bit, to say the truth. But he had come back. Bucky had come for him, he had saved him, he had turned his back to Pierce and Rumlow and all of that.

Steve wasn’t paying attention to the direction in which Bucky was leading him, so he started, surprised, when he realized he could hear people talking. He looked around: they were outside, on the A-deck, the cold air cutting their cheeks, people running up and down to the few lifeboats that were still there. One of the wooden ones had been pushed down the upper deck and laid upside down not far from them. A group of men was fighting over it, shouting, fist flying everywhere. Automata lied on the ground near the doors, knocked out, some of them still repeating their mechanic no panic announcement.

Stalking through the crowd, they walked past the first class quartet. It was playing a song that Steve didn’t know. It was cheerfully out of place. It looked surreal. Bucky didn’t even stop to acknowledge them.

“Bucky,” Steve tried, but he didn’t receive an answer. “Bucky,” he said again, more forcefully, and grabbed his wrist.

Bucky stopped, his neck snapping towards him. “What,” he asked, without any particular inflection, dry like the desert.

“Take a breath,” Steve said, quietly, wishing more than anything that they were alone, that he could cup Bucky’s face in his hand and press their forehead together and just breathe.

Bucky exhaled loudly, closing his eyes for a second, then he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m fine,” he said, quietly.

“Okay,” Steve squeezed his wrist, his thumb pressing gently against his pulse point. “Okay.”

Bucky nodded, lips pressed between his teeth. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Steve asked, feeling powerless. There were no more lifeboats, or at least, there wasn’t a place for either of them in one. And there was no doubt anymore that the ship would end up at the bottom of the sea very soon. They were walking towards aft, and the inclination was already so pronounced Steve was feeling out of breath going up as they were.

But Bucky didn’t answer, he just shook his head and went on, pushing through the sea of people. Steve managed to reach him as he entered what had once been the smoking room. Their feet were leaving wet splotches over the precious carpet. It was deserted, except for…

“Howard,” Bucky said, strangled.

Steve stopped by his side.

Howard Stark was standing in front of the huge fireplace, his inscrutable face reflected in the mirror above the mantlepiece. He was wearing a life vest, his hair free from pomade dangling sloppily on his forehead. There was a half-drunk glass of brandy leaning beside the ornate clock in front of him. He didn’t stir when Bucky called him. He looked in a trance. Steve bit his lower lip, one hand extended, trying to stop Bucky from getting closer.

“Howard,” Bucky said, and his voice trembled. “What the hell are you doing here alone?”

The man turned slowly towards them and looked completely lost.

“I’m… sorry,” he said, forehead creased and the expression of someone who was surprising himself in saying those three words for the first time in his life. “I’m sorry that I didn’t build a stronger ship.”

Bucky just looked at him, uncomprehending, mouth agape. Steve grabbed his arm. “Bucky,” he said, quietly.

He knew what Stark was doing. He knew and understood and felt a profound sense of respect for the man. Howard Stark was not a civilian in that moment, he was not one of the thousands of passengers who still hoped to end up in some way or the other on one of the lifeboats. Howard Stark was the engineer of this airship and he felt a sense of duty that was probably stronger than that of her captain.

“I’ve seen lifeboats tested in Belfast with the weight of seventy men being put down with twelve,” Stark said again, dream-like. “You know, I tried to make them fly too. But there was not enough time.”

Steve’s thoughts went back to the car in the storage room at the bottom of the ship. It was probably on her way to the bottom of the sea.

Slowly, Bucky’s crushed expression closed off into something more iron-like, something hard and steely, completely enigmatic.

There was a terrible groan and a couple of ashtrays fell on the ground as the slope of the ship increased.

“Mr. Stark,” Steve said, and nodded slowly, a lump forming in his throat. This man had helped him when he didn’t know anything about him. He had put clothes on him and he had winked at him conspiratorially, figuring out immediately what was going on between him and Bucky. He had never judged him and he had never made him feel inferior. Howard looked at him, the corner of his lip curling upwards, knowingly.

“What a snake pit, Mr. Rogers,” he said, wistfully.

“Howard,” Bucky stepped forward and offered him his metal hand. “It has been an honor.”

Stark squeezed it with his own, respect seeping through his every gesture. “You would have made a great engineer, Lord Barnes.”

“It’s Bucky,” Bucky said, quickly.

“Bucky,” Howard repeated, then turned towards the ornate clock on the mantlepiece, considering it for a second. Then, he threw a quick look at his own pocket watch and opened the face of the clock, adjusting it at the right time: 2.12 am.

They didn’t say good luck and they didn’t say goodbye and this time it was Steve’s job to drag Bucky through the revolving door, and outside again, on the aft deck. The situation looked even more frenzied after the few minutes they had spent inside. In the distance, Steve could still hear the quartet play, the music was somber now, slow and sad like a prayer. He knew the melody, he remembered it from somewhere. Words spun in his head like a distant, foggy dream.

> _Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky,_
> 
> _Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly,_

Steve made the mistake of turning back and his eyes widened in horror. The bow was completely submerged in water, the first funnel was slowly disappearing under the icy blackness of the Atlantic. Steve thought about Bucky’s stateroom, the Monet paintings leaning against the wall like nothing. He imagined them floating like ghosts.

People were scurrying everywhere, in every direction – there were so many of them, so many – and they were screaming and shouting and God, _they had not done enough_. He wondered where his friends were, Dum Dum with his bowler hat and Dernier who only spoke French and Gabe with his quiet kindness and Monty, haughty and with a past nobody knew anything about and Jim that smoked more cigarettes than anybody Steve knew. He could only hope they had managed to jump on one of the boats. And if they didn’t… He couldn’t think about it. He had insisted that they tried and shepherd people around, so it was on him if they didn’t… if they didn’t… It was his fault.

“Steve,” Bucky’s voice was coming from afar.

He turned, without really seeing him. There was like a veil in front of his eyes. _Tears_ , he realized, touching his cheek. _Tears_.

“Steve,” Bucky said again, cradling his face into his hands. “Sweetheart, look at me.”

Steve blinked.

Bucky was holding him, in front of everyone, in the open air.

He opened his mouth to warn him but nothing came out.

“We have to stay on the ship as long as possible,” Bucky said, slow and all-business.

Steve nodded and Bucky nodded and then very ostentatiously intertwined their fingers – metal and flesh – and raised their hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss on top of it. He smiled that ravishing smile of his – his eyes, blue and wide, crinkling at the corners – and then tugged. “You jump, I jump, right?”

Steve nodded. “Right.”

“Let’s move up.”

They clambered over the A-deck rail and Steve wrapped one arm around the bannister, then, using all his strength, he lowered Bucky towards the deck below, holding on with one hand, in a too familiar way. Bucky dangled for long seconds, then, when the way was mostly clear, he let go. As he jumped down behind him, Steve tried not to think about the sensation of Bucky’s fingers slipping from his grasp.

The crowd was growing and growing, people running desperately from the submerged bow to aft. They joined a crush of people literally clawing and scrambling over each other to get down the narrow stairs to the well deck... Bucky’s fingers were tight like a vine around Steve’s wrist. It was impossible to get to the stairs without literally starting to walk on people.

Steve looked around, then pointed to the B-deck railing and both rushed towards it, climbing and lowering each other. This time, Steve fell first, Bucky following suit, tumbling in a heap. Steve went back, hauling him up, whispering under his breath. “Come on, come on.”

The airship groaned and moaned, the stay cables along the top of the funnels were snapping one after the other, and they lashed like steel whips down into the water. The central funnel toppled from its mounts, falling like a temple pillar twenty-eight feet across, it plummeted into the water with a tremendous splash. Steve wanted to close his ears to the screams. The windows were exploding, one after the other, sucking in people like spiders in the drain; the giant dome of the grand staircase collapsed in a blaze of crystal.

They finally reached the last steep staircase; Steve pushed Bucky forward, pressing him against the back of a man that was walking like revenant, talking gibberish to himself. “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”

Bucky growled and fought his way up, pressing his metal hand between his shoulder blades. “You want to walk a little faster through that valley, mate?”

Steve burst into a hysterical, breathless laugh, stumbling over the last step, grasping at the back of Bucky’s ruined jacket. There was a priest, standing on one of the capstans, a growing crowd huddled on their knees around him.

“Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners—"

They were praying, sobbing or just staring at nothing, and Steve growled in frustration, pulling himself from handhold to handhold, tugging Bucky along the deck.

“Come on, Buck. We can't expect God to do all the work for us,” he groaned, slipping on the tilting deck.

Behind him, Bucky barked a throaty laugh. “I thought you were Catholic. Aren’t we Protestants who have to work for it?”

They made it to the stern rail, right at the base of the flagpole. They gripped the rail, jammed in between other terrified people.

“Yeah, I’m not takin’ any chances.”

Bucky smiled, his cheek pressed against the flagpole, he looked exhausted and immensely overcome and… Steve loved him. He realized it, fully and completely. He loved him. And wasn’t it funny? He was shaken with the knowledge of those feelings right in the spot in which he had pulled Bucky back onto the ship, just two nights and a lifetime ago.

Above the wailing and sobbing, the priest’s voice carried on, cracking with emotion. “...and I saw new heavens and a new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away and the sea was no longer.”

Bucky’s knuckles were white against the railing. “Father Byles is a cheery chap, mh? Must be fun at parties.”

Steve snorted and leaned in, pressing his lips against Bucky’s scraped knuckles. A dimple formed in Bucky’s cheek.

The lights flickered, threatening to go out, as the stern rose into the night sky ablaze with stars. Steve looked up, taking in the immensity, then looked back down and Bucky was in front of him, and really, it wasn’t a bad way to die, if they were together.

“I also saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city coming, down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride prepared to meet her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne ring out this is God's dwelling among men. He shall dwell with them and they shall be his people and He shall be their God who is always with them.”

Behind Bucky, a young mother was clutching a toddler to her breast; he was crying desperately, oblivious to the soothing words that the girl was whispering to his ear. A pang of guilt cut through Steve. How was it possible that there were still women and children on this ship? He should have made sure that…

“Steve,”

He shifted his gaze back to Bucky. He was looking at him with those limpid dark blue eyes, perfectly aware of what was going on inside of him. He understood. He shared the same burden.

“Just look at me,” Bucky murmured, soft and open like he had been in Howard Stark’s flying car, underneath Steve, mere hours before. How could it have been hours?

“He shall wipe every tear from their eyes. And there shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away.”

Steve pressed another kiss against Bucky’s knuckles. “At least our souls are safe, uh?”

Bucky huffed a laugh. “Irish problems.”

A growl from the heart of the ship covered every scream and every cry as the stern tilted faster then ever. They were almost vertical. Steve could see where the sky melted in the ocean at the horizon. And then, people started to plummet, passengers losing their grip and sliding down the wooden deck like a bobsled run, hundreds of feet before they hit the icy water. A young woman with red hair tumbled and fell as she struggled along the railing and skidded away screaming. Bucky hooked one leg to the railing and grasped Steve’s chin with his metal hand. “Don’t look. Look at me, look at me, Stevie, look at me.”

“I have to,” Steve heard himself croak. “I have to, I should have done more, I should have…”

Bucky’s lips tightened in a mockery of a smile and his hand moved to the back of Steve’s head and he yanked him forward, hiding his face in the soft, damp skin of his neck. “I’ll do it for you. I’ll look for you.”

Steve closed his eyes, diving into Bucky’s embrace. He could hear people leaping from the aft deck rail, panic flooding through them like water had flooded the hallways and the salons of the Titanic. They fell screaming and hit the water like cannonballs, bumping against the sharp blades of the starboard propeller with a sickening smack.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, sweetheart,” Bucky kept repeating, his cold brass fingers pressing so hard against Steve’s nape to leave bruises.

Suddenly, the lights flickered one last time before going out completely. Less than second after, the sound of an enormous explosion shook all of them from head to toe. Steve’s head snapped up and he met Bucky’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said, and Steve barely read the words on his lips when he went on. “I told you, you would notice when the boiler rooms exploded.”

Steve’s breath hitched in his throat. It was a miracle his lungs were still working.

“Now Steve,” Bucky said, as a terrible groaning sound cut the atmosphere. “The ship is going to break,” he whispered, looking immeasurably calm. “You hold on, for the love of God, hold on as tight as you can.”

Steve wasn’t sure that his brain was able to understand what Bucky has just told him. Surely a ship could not simply… break, right? It wasn’t a twig, it was a fucking ship, a gigantic, enormous ship. It was called _Titanic_ , for fuck’s sake. He just gaped at him, unable to wrap his mind around it, and just. Held on.

Because just heartbeats after Bucky pronounced the most absurd sentence Steve had ever heard, a loud cracking report came across the water.

“Eyes on me,” Bucky said, softly, pleadingly, but this time, Steve couldn’t obey.

He looked down.

Near the third funnel, a lonely man was still clutching the ship's rail. Steve stared in horror as the wood split right between his feet. A cavernous gape opened with a roar of breaking steel, as the ship structure itself ripped apart like a sheet of paper right in front of their incredulous eyes. Steve stared down into the yawning jaws, looking straight down into the bowels of the monster, accompanied by a surging noise, like the rapid-fire of a machine gun. People were plummeting into the chasm, looking like puppets with their strings cut. The remaining stay cables on the funnel snapped across the decks like the whip of a lion tamer, ripping off davits and ventilators. Fires, explosions, and sparks lighted the maw of the beast as the hull split down to the keel.

“Steve!” Bucky’s voice was more urgent. “Now, hold on!”

Steve felt the air leave his lungs all at once. They were going down. It was worse than an asthma attack, worse than riding on the Cyclone at Coney Island. Somewhere inside his head, he knew he was screaming in terror, his hands clinging to the railing, Bucky’s metal arm wrapped around his shoulders, a prison and a safety net. Everyone was crying and yelling and shouting, the sound going up like the roar of fans at a baseball stadium when a run is scored. It lasted seconds and hundreds of years, as the section of the airship, as long as half of the Empire State Building, fell back toward the water almost level, bellowing down into the sea and forcing out a massive wave of icy water.

When the ship seemingly righted itself, Steve felt a gush of nausea. All the people who had jumped, all the people who had fallen. They had just crushed all of them like insects under a boot.

“We’re saved!” someone exclaimed, disbelieving.

Steve looked at Bucky and he shook his head. “We have to move.”

He started to climb over the rail and when Steve began to imitate him, Bucky stretched his hand towards him. “Give me your hand,” he said, as Steve entangled their fingers and allowed him to pull him over. “I got you. I won’t let go.”

When they were both safely on the other side, they started motioning people around them to do the same. Pulled down by the immeasurable weight of the bow which was rapidly flooding, the buoyant stern reprised tilting up, faster than before. Quickly and relentlessly, the fantail angled up a second time. Everyone started to scream – did they ever stop? – clinging to benches, railings, ventilators... anything to keep from plummeting to a horrible death as the section of the airship lifted. And as the aft went up, past forty-five degrees, then past sixty, people began to precipitate again, like dead weights, sliding and tumbling. They skidded down the deck, like skaters in Battery Park, shouting and flailing to grab onto something. Bodies started to pile up at the forward rail, like hay in summer.

Steve and Bucky kept pulling people over the rail without waiting for their permission, just grabbing and tugging and shaking them up. Steve couldn’t stop but think that it was the same place in which he had pulled Bucky over two nights earlier – how could it be? how could it be?

When everyone around them was safely on the other side, Steve lied beside Bucky on what had been the vertical face of the hull, their hands grasping at the railing, which was now horizontal. Metal, flesh, flesh, flesh. They looked down to the boiling sea and this time, Bucky didn’t tell him to close his eyes. At the base of the stern section, the suction was irresistible. Who they couldn’t help climb over dangled from the railing, their legs flapping over the drop like those of a hanged person. They fell, one by one, dropping down the now vertical deck, some of them bouncing grotesquely off benches and capstans. And Steve’s heart broke each and every time.

“Take a deep breath when I say,” Bucky talked fast, a steady presence on his left. “And hold it right before we go into the water. The ship will suck us down. Kick for the surface and keep kicking. Don't let go of my hand. We are going to make it, Steve. Trust me.”

“I trust you, Buck,” he said.

And they went down.

When in 1907 Coney Island burned down, Steve had been heartbroken. Coney Island had been the place in which Sarah brought him for his birthday. They had cotton candy and he could choose up to three attractions and a gift. In 1907, Sarah was already too sick to bring him there and Steve refused to go alone and then, not even a month later, Coney Island had burned to the ground and Steve had felt like everything was slipping through his fingers. Sarah had died not even a year later and before leaving for Europe, Steve had walked there one last time. It wasn’t even his birthday. He had just gone, hands deep in his pockets, and he had chosen three of the new attractions and he had eaten cotton candy. There was one called the Roof Garden in the Pavilion of Fun. It was a fake elevator that collapsed when you least expected it. When it had happened, Steve had felt his heart in his throat, his stomach clenching, adrenaline spiking up, making him feel light-headed.

And that was it.

That was the closest thing Steve could associate with what he was feeling at that moment. In addition to that, though, sheer terror.

The poop deck was disappearing.

Foot.

After.

Foot.

The last thing Steve saw before the impact, was Bucky’s hand tangled with his, clutching the white rail.

The last thing he heard was Bucky’s voice shouting. “Now!”

Steve took in as much air as possible and went down.

Underwater everything was dark. Steve tried to open his eyes but the salt and whatever substance had been leaking from the ship stung so terribly that he closed them shut, grinding his teeth to avoid groaning and releasing precious air. He was kicking his feet as desperately as possible, but the vortex was sucking him down, down, down. The water was freezing cold, it numbed his limbs, his everything. Bucky’s hand was still holding his, the only chain to reality he had. The undertow was whirling and spinning their bodies and Steve had no idea where was up and where was down, where he was supposed to swim towards. And then something or someone crashed into them and he lost his hold on Bucky’s hand. Instinctively, he opened his mouth, the ‘no’ wrenched out of his chest. But they were just bubbles, and water started flowing inside his mouth. Steve closed it, the horrible taste of salt and gasoline and whatever else was floating around – blood, said a voice in his head, blood – making him sick and nauseous. He needed air, he needed to get to the surface… he needed… He knew his movements were getting slower, the icy cold water slowing him down more and more. He kicked once more, then twice, and as he was starting to drift, to just let go… A metal grip tightened on the front of his shirt and someone was pulling him up, up, up.

When he broke the surface, the cold air shocked him to the point that he opened his eyes wide and spluttered the water still in his mouth, his chest shaken by dry heaves.

“Bu-Bucky,” he mouthed, but no sound come out, just more coughs and bile in his mouth and where was he? He must have been the one pulling him up… he must have… Steve looked right and left, eyes burning, ears ringing. “Bucky!” he tried again, but everyone was screaming and yelling, trying desperately to find someone, something. They were all white floating ghosts in a sea of debris.

“Steve!”

Steve turned. Where was he? Where?

“St– ”

“Bucky!”

He had not imagined it, he had heard his name, it was Bucky’s voice, it must be his.

“Bucky!”

“Ste– !”

And then he saw him. A man was pushing him underwater, trying to climb on top of him, to do what, Steve didn’t know. The only thing he did know was that that man was going to die way before hibernation had the best of him.

He swam messily towards them and with a Herculean effort he punched the man on a temple, once, twice, until he saw Bucky emerging, spluttering, his hangs grabbing at Steve’s shoulder like a lifeline. Steve grabbed the hem of Bucky’s jacket and tugged. He had to get Bucky to safety, he had to.

“Swim!” he heard himself yell like a madman. “Swim, Bucky, I need you to swim!”

They broke out the clot of people; all around them, the screams and the wails were infinite, pain and anguish and torment. Steve thought, this is it, this is Hell, this is how Hell must sound. He kept yanking Bucky forward. _There must be something, there must be something_ , he kept thinking, desperately, as they kept moving in the dark water.

“It’s… it’s so c-cold,” Bucky stuttered behind him and when Steve turned he noticed with horror that he was only flapping one arm, the flesh one, while the other looked frozen, useless, just dead weight.

“I know,” Steve said. “I know, come on, swim Bucky.”

Steve kept going, blindly. A fucking airship had just collapsed in the sea, where was the debris? And then they bumped into it, Steve’s palm, flailing in the umpteenth stroke, hit something wooden and carved with a slap. The pain reverberated through his arm and he had never been more happier about it.

“Here, here, get on it,” he dragged Bucky forward and pushed him up. Bucky slithered on it, gracelessly, and motioned Steve to imitate him. But when Steve tried to get up onto the carved door, it tilted on one side and threatened to sink, almost dumping Bucky off.

“Okay, okay, no more than one, clear.”

Bucky blinked owlishly at him, uncomprehending. “Get on the…”

“I’m fine, Buck, I– I’ll just… just stay here. Still. I read that still his better,” he clung to the door, close to him, keeping his upper body out of the water as best as he could.

He inhaled and exhaled, the condensation coming out in white clouds.

“Steve,” Bucky said again, weakly and Steve looked at him, really looked at him.

There was a gash above his left eyebrow, blood already clogged and iced on the side of his face. Steve felt his heart sink and he raised a hand to assess the damage. “Fuck, Bucky, what happened?”

Bucky blinked, very slowly. “What?” he asked, without understanding.

Debris must have hit him as they plunged in the water or that damned man must have struck him with something blunt. Suddenly, Steve irrationally desired to go back and find him to kill him with his own hands.

“Nothing, nothing, hey, look at me, uh? We’ll be alright now.”

Bucky blinked again and nodded and Steve pressed his forehead against Bucky’s, their hands interlocking on the woodwork. They were still close to the screams and the wails but as seconds passed, they were less and less, they just fell in the background, almost reassuringly so. Steve wondered if in Hell you get used to the screams too.

“Look at me, look at me, Buck,” Steve uttered, pressing his thumb against the soft flesh between index and thumb.

Bucky hummed, his blue eyes dark like everything else. They were both shaking, head to toe, it was impossible to avoid it. Steve had read… Steve had read it was actually better to stay still, not move too much, not disperse heat.

“The boats,” Bucky slurred. “’ll come back for us, Stevie. Hold on.”

“Yeah, yeah, Buck,” _Sweetheart_. “They… they had to row away for the s-suction and now they'll come back.”

Every word felt like a burden, his tongue was heavy as if he had eaten too much fudge. He forced his eyes open and only when he started marveling at the little stars of ice trapped in Bucky’s eyelashes he realized his eyes were closed. “Hey, no, Buck, look at me.”

And he did, scrunching his nose as if he was just waking up from a nap. “Steve,” he said. “Steve.”

“I’m here, sweetheart.”

“’t’s getting quiet.”

Steve’s breath caught in his throat as he looked around. There were shapes in the water, but nobody was fighting anymore. Just the occasional wail, whining sounds, nothing more.

“I don't know about you,” Steve wheezed, just to keep Bucky’s attention.

“’bout me,” Bucky repeated, eyelids heavy.

“I don’t know about you,” Steve repeated, rejoicing in Bucky’s reaction. “But I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about all this.”

Bucky let out a chuff of laughter which almost immediately transformed in a cloud of white condensation. “You’re a punk.”

“Jerk.”

Bucky smiled, tiredly. “Hey, Rogers?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I love you,”

Steve tried hard not to smile – or cry. “You think?”

“Mmm.”

“Fuck you, Barnes.”

Bucky wailed in indignation, his forehead creasing. “T-that’s not nice.”

“You are not saying goodbye dramatically to me.”

“N-no,” Bucky agreed, lazily. “’m cold, Steve.”

Steve grasped at his frozen hand more forcefully; he was starting to feel the drag of sleep too. “Listen to me, Bucky. We’re gettin’ outta this. We’re going to Coney Island and then ‘ll come back to England with y-you. ‘ll help you m-manage your c-castle, drag it outta trouble.”

Bucky hummed in approval, his eyes were closed, and ice was covering his dark hair and his nose and his metal arm. The ice looked beautiful on it, little stars, little flowers.

“P-promise me,” Bucky mumbled.

“P-promise,” Steve lied, trying to hook their stiff fingers. His voice broke like his heart. “We’ll get there, me an’ you. In your c-castle.”

“End o’ the line,” Bucky’s lips twitched, his cheek was lying on top of their fingers. Steve couldn’t feel his legs. _It’s_ _alright_. Steve thought. _It’s alright, I had this. I had this man and I loved him good._

Steve squeezed his hand and Bucky blinked again, slowly, like a bear waking up from hibernation – how fitting. “Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he whispered and Bucky rolled his eyes. “Hush, list-listen. You must do me this honor– Promise me you will survive. That you will never give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless... promise me now, and never let go of that promise.”

Bucky frowned. “You said n-no g-goodbyes. That sounds… omin– omusl– Fuck, that sounds like a good… goodbye.”

“A promise for a promise, Barnes.”

“B-bossy. I… I promise,” he mumbled, eyelids falling close again.

“Good,” Steve thought. _Good_.

All was quiet. No more screams from Hell.

All was quiet now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the Titanic, the last song played by the band was, allegedly, the hymn Nearer my God to Thee.


	15. Interlude (April 15th-21st, 1912)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s breathing.”
> 
> “What?”

Sloshing of water.

“Is he awake?”

Tunk. Tunk. Tunk.

Blue sky, no clouds.

Is that an oar?

Everything wobbles. Wobbles again. Nausea. Please no more wobbling. No more sea.

The smell of iron.

He knows it. It’s familiar. Is it blood?

People talking.

“Hush, we’re still comple– ”

“We’ll be in New York in– ”

It’s still night. No, it’s daylight. He can move. No, he’s frozen. He’s moving. Is that a– ?

The sun. Thirsty. Water. There’s so much water but he can’t drink. He sees faces. A woman. She’s blonde and she’s beautiful, maybe she’s an angel, she must be an angel, he died.

Cawing.

It burns. The sun. Salt. Sun. Sa– It’s cold.

He’s cold.

He’s hot.

He’s burning.

He’s frozen.

He’s thirsty.

“Is that a collapsible?”

“A collapsible? We’re in the middle of the Atlantic.”

“Yes, but the Titanic…”

“You think that’s a collapsible of the Titanic?”

“Hey! Hey, is someone alive there?!”

“We should bury them at sea if they are dead.”

“Of course, they are dead.”

“Let’s just check, uh?”

“Two days– ”

“He’s breathing.”

“What?”

“He’s breathing, you muck!”


	16. All quiet on the Western Front (Autumn 1918)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He saved me in every way that a person can be saved. He exists now only in this picture. And in my memory."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The soft epilogue [(semi-quote)](https://cardiamachina.co.vu/tagged/seventy%20years%20of%20sleep).

Western Front – Autumn 1918

Captain Steven Grant Rogers was sitting on a crate in a godforsaken trench in the middle of fucking nowhere.

It was quite possible that said crate was full of dynamite, honestly, but he was just so tired he didn’t care. He leaned against the wall of the trench, barely reacting at the gravel falling on his head and took in a mouthful of menthol-flavored smoke. His lungs expanded. He was just spent. Without even noticing, he found himself fiddling with a hole in his uniform’s pocket. He could feel the metal of his pocket watch, there. Succumbing to the temptation, he fished it out and opened its lid.

Bright eyes, crinkled in an enigmatic smile, looked back at him. Steve felt relief and sadness flooding inside of him. Every day, when things became too much, too heavy, too horrible, too unbearable, he could just flick the lid of his pocket watch open and he would always be there, forever crystalized in a Spring night of so many years before. Sometimes, Steve thought he had imagined him. Imagined all of it. The gambling and winning the ticket and the Titanic and the wreak. But then he opened his pocket watch, the same pocket watch in which he had slotted the most intense portrait he had ever drawn in his life, and he was there. He was always there. He had been there when Steve had read his name in the list of the deceased and he had been there when Steve had traveled to the West Coast to bring his condolences to Jim Morita’s mother and then back to Georgia to Gabe Jones’ household in Macon; and he had been there when Steve had camped under the stars in the Grand Canyon; and he had been there when he had gone back to Brooklyn and started working at the docks; and he had been there when the War had started and when Steve had read about the Lusitania and when he had enlisted and when he’d left for boot camp, already a sergeant, and when he had shipped out in May, back to Europe, with the 107th infantry. And he had been there when Steve had run up the ranks faster than anyone else, despite his upbringing; and he had been there when the regiment had been slowly rotated into the front line in relief of the British 6th division; and he had been there when they had attacked at Dickebusch. He was always there, tucked inside Steve’s jacked, the ticking of the clock and the beating of his heart measuring the time in tune.

“Your brother?”

Steve started, and his right hand curled instinctively around the stock of his rifle. The man in front of him raised both hands. His palms were dirty and scraped. Steve’s eyes ran to his face. He was one of the soldiers from the 92nd. His name was Sam Wilson and they had exchanged a couple of words before.

Steve slid to his right and left some space for Sam on the crate. “A friend,” he said, quietly.

“Back home?” Sam asked, taking out a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket.

Steve shook his head, the corner of his mouth turning up in a sad smile. Sam looked at him for a second, his eyes serious and dark. Steve was reminded of the quiet calm of Gabe Jones and something turned in his stomach, making his eyes sting. There was something in Sam that welcomed confidence.

“He was a man named Bucky Barnes. He saved me in every way that a person can be saved. He exists now only in this picture. And in my memory.”

*

Macktyre Hall, Northern England - Autumn 1918

Most of the photographs had been moved to the boudoir, as the rooms were prepared for the arrival of the officers. Macktyre Hall had been a convalescent home for a little bit more than a year and a half and its inhabitants were so used to the constant back and forth that the relative tranquillity of before had been totally forgotten. There had been officers asking about the people on the photographs that still adorned the entrance hall and the library who was who and there had always been a Barnes sister or two ready to answer their questions. They had been curious, the patients, and some indulgence and never hurt anybody.

There were family portraits and medium close-ups of the three sisters at different ages: Rebecca, with her long mane of curls and Martha, with her sharp eyes and Judith with her infectious smile. There was a man with an imposing mustache and a woman – severe and beautiful with softness in her eyes. In the oldest family portraits, there was also a boy. He had something of each one of his sisters: the cleft in the chin, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the dimples in his cheeks. The most recent photograph showed him standing beside his sisters, one hand on the shoulder of the oldest, not a day after sixteen, the baby fat still in his round face.

Who knew him, knew that he had lost it in the years. He had lost many things.

“I’m determined to defend the library as a recreation room,” Lady Rebecca was saying, waving her hands to underline her position, the red cross on her shoulder clear against the pristine pale grey of her uniform.

“But milady, there is no space for the additional beds,” the poor butler was trying to object. “The Americans will be here any minute.”

“We’ll make more space,” Rebecca answered, curtly. “We can always put the intermediates in the boudoir.”

Poor Hogan looked scandalized.

“Oh my, what will we do without the boudoir?”

Rebecca turned on her heels, her skirts twirling despite the simple cut. “Bucky! Finally, I thought you were going to sleep until dinnertime!”

Lord James Buchanan Barnes chuckled softly, walking the last few steps of the staircase. He was wearing an olive-green uniform and his left sleeve was pinned up to his shoulder. “It is barely half-past eight, Rebecca.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, help me convince Hogan here that the patients need the library as a recreation room.”

Bucky looked past her shoulder and smiled kindly to the flustered butler. “Can we do anything to appease my dear sister?”

“Well, m’lord, I will speak with Lady Wintar when she wakes up and with Doctor Banner when he will arrive and try to find a solution,” he paused and Bucky waited, patiently. “May I assume that the boudoir could be taken into consideration as an additional room for the incoming officers?”

Bucky nodded. “You may, Hogan.”

“Very well, m’lord. I will start programming the automata, then. Your breakfast is ready in the small library.”

“Thank you.”

When the butler disappeared, probably to bring his concerns to Lady Winnifred, Bucky turned to Rebecca. “He will have a breakdown and it will be all your fault, Becca. And you know how hard is to find a good butler nowadays.”

She rolled her eyes and followed him in the small library. There was already some chattering from the other side of the screen that separated the space and, honestly, Bucky could barely remember how it was before they’d converted the house in a convalescent home. The newspaper was ironed and presented beside Bucky’s place at the head of the table. He accepted the small plate of seasonal fruit that one of the automata handed him and sat down, waiting for Rebecca to do the same.

Bucky started to spread some butter on the bread. “Who are the new arrivals?” he asked when she sat with a still-warm scone on her dish.

“Some American officers from the 107th infantry regiment,” Rebecca answered, stealing one of Bucky’s slices of apple.

Bucky hummed, noncommittally. “From France?”

Rebecca nodded. “Some of them were detained in hospitals and now they are sent here because they are in no condition of going back to the United States.”

Bucky opened the newspaper. “Of course, we will be happy to have them. Americans can be fun.”

“You met many Americans?” she asked, faking a casual tone. “All the Americans I met in my life – and with all I mean one – ended up being backstabbing– ”

Bucky glowered. “Rebecca.”

“What,” she snapped. “You read Judy’s telegram from London, we’re still paying the price for his betrayal and I do not care if you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, he was trying to drag us in the mud. If it wasn’t for…”

“I know,” Bucky cut her off, snapping the newspaper shut. “I know, Rebecca. But it is in the past.”

“It is not!” she protested. “And I do not understand you, Bucky. Judith is more invested in this than you and she is twenty years old! She was a child when it happened. You lived through it, and you were about to marry his daughter and you were on that stupid airship because of him…”

“Don’t push it, Rebecca,” Bucky pressed his lips together in a tight line.

“…and you would have not gone through that trauma and memory loss and…”

“Enough!” Bucky found himself standing, chest heaving up and down.

Rebecca glared at him and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I will not tell Judith what to do. I will not order her to stop digging into it after seven years if it makes her feel better. I decided a long time ago that you girls would be free to do as you pleased. You both know I am not comfortable with talking about it. It has been a long time.”

“And yet you have not got back a single– ” 

“Rebecca,” Bucky was seriously starting to lose his temper, his hand was trembling. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want to remember?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer, nor for a reaction.

Rebecca didn’t understand. She had never been able to understand since the first moment in which Bucky had woken up in the liner which was taking him back to the United Kingdom after the sinking of the Titanic. Since the first moment, she had pushed for Bucky to contact doctors and experts, in order to find a solution to his memory loss. And Bucky– at the very beginning he had indulged her, despite the crushing grip in which his insides were taken every time he even thought about remembering. He had read the newspapers, once back home, and all those names, names of people he knew, names of entire families forever lost at sea...

Alexander– Bucky was traveling with him and with his assistant, Rumlow. They were both declared missing. He had been like a second father to Bucky and yet… and yet something had felt wrong and when the American lawyer, Sitwell, had provided the documents they had found out that Alexander had been trying to take their fortune since after the day their father died. Sitting on his bed, as Becca gave him the news, fury and rage coming out of her in waves, Bucky had not been surprised. He knew it already. He _remembered_. It was hazy and confused but there was a safe and a folder and papers scattered everywhere… Bucky knew he had found out about it on the ship.

Discovering Alexander’s betrayal had been a driving force for his sisters to insist Bucky recovered. While Bucky… he just felt hollow. Something was missing. He had lost something, in that journey, and he didn’t know what it was. Maybe he had lost himself. He didn’t want to find out. He didn’t want to remember. He hadn’t wanted to stand in front of a jury and testimony against White Star Line, despite all the pressuring from Judith and Rebecca during the years. Martha, sweet, understanding Martha, with her smarts and her wit, she had let him be. They had always been the most similar.

It didn’t mean things didn’t come back to him.

They were usually dreams. Dreams that didn’t make any sense. He dreamt of dancing in a room full of people. He dreamt of a boiler room. He dreamt of feeling the cold wind against his face and a sense of vertigo. He dreamt of the inventor, Howard Stark, leaning against his blueprints. He dreamt of feeling happy.

But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to dream and he didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want his arm to be replaced – it hadn’t worked out once before, right? He wanted to retire in his manor and manage his family and do his part.

And so he did. He had studied economics and economic theory and he had written letters and solved the issues that Alexander’s meddling had risen and he had let Rebecca and Judith fight their holy war to expose him, even after his death. And when the war had come he had put on his olive-colored uniform – the one he had gained barely attending military school, so many years before – and he had endured patiently the fumbling of an officer telling him he was dispensed. And then Macktyre Hall had become a convalescent home and Rebecca had trained as a nurse and well. Here they were.

But sometimes, especially when Judith wrote from London with news on her infinite crusade, old wounds came back to haunt him.

He stalked out of the room, thoughts swirling in his mind, and almost tumbled into a man in a wheelchair.

“Oh my, I am so sorry,” he blurted out immediately.

It was one of the American officers. What time…? Hogan did not joke when he said it was a matter of minutes.

Even sitting, the soldier was an imposing man. He looked about as tall as Bucky, dressed all in a pristine olive-green uniform, his rank well visible on his wide shoulders – Captain. He had a strong jaw, full lips, and a long, straight nose. His hair was blond, styled in army fashion. He looked perfectly healthy, if not for a white bandage covering his eyes.

“I assume you almost bumped into me?” he asked, light-heartedly.

Bucky’s heart missed a beat at hearing his voice. It was deep and low and manly. And somehow… familiar. But how was it possible?

“I apologize, m’lord, Captain, these army issued automata are so old,” Hogan rushed to Bucky’s side, starting to tinkle with the old model of Mark that was pushing the man’s chair.

Bucky stepped aside, letting them proceed towards one of the rooms on the ground floor and ran a hand through his hair.

“Are they here?” Rebecca appeared out of thin air and Bucky started.

“Yes,” he said, stiffly.

She looked at him with her big, dark eyes, then nodded. “Better get to work, then.”

After welcoming the officers of the 107th infantry and exchanging pleasantries with them, Bucky left Rebecca and their mother to deal with the aftermath. They were in charge of Macktyre as a convalescent home, while he kept working on running it as an old fashioned estate. He had made some changes, his tenants were now the best paid in the country and he frequently visited, asking for their opinions on a wide range of matters, opening his doors to them every time they needed it. The war had been talking a lot from them but had also given them a purpose, a sense of community.

That day, though, as he read through reports from his tenants and new decrees straight from the ministry, though, Bucky found himself unable to focus. His damaged mind played him tricks. He kept blanking, looking at the paper but really only seeing a ballroom, or the bow of a ship or hands moving swiftly on paper, holding a charcoal pencil.

Blond hair on blue eyes.

It must have been his conversation with Rebecca, that kind of discussions always put in in a mood.

And yet.

And yet his mind kept tricking him, guiding him towards thoughts about the journey on the Titanic and then, inexplicably, to the blond Captain. He was handsome, of course, everyone could realize that at a first look, and probably this was just Bucky noticing it. He had always been… different. And he knew it. At twenty-seven years old he was still unmarried and he had no interest in taking a bride. For years, his mother had been indulgent with him – he had been badly bruised by a failed engagement after all, and in the worst possible way – but now… Bucky knew she was starting to worry. Rebecca’s fiancé was on the front, and Martha had gotten married the previous summer to a good man who had been discharged with honor after being wounded on the Somme. Judy, well, she was still young. _After the war_ , he had told Winnifred, after the war, he would find someone. Be content. Put aside his… proclivities, once and for all.

So he honestly surprised himself when, after supper, he went looking for Rebecca, who was getting ready for bed, knocked on her door and asked, out of the blue. “The man in the wheelchair. Who was he?”

Rebecca turned towards the door. She was taking off the white handkerchief from her head. “I fear you must be more specific.”

Bucky felt himself blush. “The man I bumped into this morning,” he said.

“Oh,” she motioned him to come closer and Bucky obliged and started taking off the hairpins from her locks without her prompting him. “He is the highest-ranking officer here. He has been wounded by shrapnel and a Doctor Erskine in France performed a small miracle to save his sight. Apparently, he’s already healing pretty well and Doctor Banner will come up tomorrow to take off his bandages. They were a precaution for the travel. He will still need rest, though. This is why they sent him here with his men.”

Bucky nodded, finishing up his careful work and placing a kiss atop the unruly mane of curls. Rebecca scoffed and he smiled.

“Good,” he said, quietly.

“He’s quite handsome,” Rebecca answered, meaningfully.

That night, Bucky dreamt of dancing with a man. He dreamt of sweaty cheeks and a soft smile and warm laughter. He dreamt of tangling his fingers with those of someone who had black spots of charcoal on his fingertips. When he woke up, he was crying.

It was by complete chance that he ended up in the same room as Captain– Captain… Captain… did Becca tell him his name? It was after noon and most of the other patients were strolling outside or taking a nap. Bucky had entered the boudoir without thinking, looking for a book on agriculture, and the man was there, sitting on his chair, the automaton behind him turned off. He was playing with a pocket watch, fiddling with its clasp without opening it. His head was turned towards the window to his right, his eyes still covered by thick bandages. Bucky wondered if he could see the light through them.

“I apologize,” Bucky said, after discarding the idea of walking back on his tracks. “I just need to grab a book.”

The man flinched, his fingers closing automatically around his watch as if protecting it.

“I did not want to startle you,” Bucky added, apologetically.

“No, of course,” he cleared his throat. “Please. I was told to wait here for Doctor Banner, he should arrive at any moment.”

Bucky smiled, then remembered he could not see him, so he mumbled his assent and walked to the tall bookcase on the left.

“Are you from New York?” he heard himself asking, as he ran his fingers over the spine of the books. What a stupid question, of course he was from New York. The 107th infantry regiment was the New York Guard.

“Yes,” the man answered. “But my mother was Irish.”

“You don’t have a strong accent,” Bucky went on, hid eyes not really reading the titles of the books in front of him. His heart was beating fast, for some reason; he didn’t want the Captain to stop talking, he didn’t want to take his book and go.

He chuckled and Bucky felt a shiver run through his body like a lightning bolt. “I lived in Europe for a while,” he answered.

“Ireland?”

“All over the place: Ireland, England, even France.”

Bucky stopped looking and turned around to look at the man. He was still fiddling with his pocket watch. “Wow, you have seen the world. I was supposed to get to America, once. It didn’t happen, though,” he paused. “Well, I suppose I did get to America, I just came back rather abruptly. I didn’t even see the Statue of Liberty.”

The man made an indignant sound. “How is it possible? It’s the Statue of Liberty!” he exaggerated his accent and Bucky laughed.

“I wasn’t conscious,” he said, quietly.

The man frowned. “Oh, I am sorry. Were you ill?”

Bucky hesitated. “I guess so.”

The Captain didn’t talk for a while, then waved a hand vaguely. “How come you were traveling to America?”

Bucky nibbled at his lower lip, waiting for the familiar sensation of dread that fell over him every time the subject was breached, but nothing happened. He inhaled. “I was supposed to get married to an American woman,” he answered.

The Captain stopped playing with his pocket watch. Bucky stared at the rainbow reflected on its polished surface. The sun was hitting it just so and the small freckles of color curled prettily on its side. Bizarrely, the image of a similar rainbow reflected on a blue diamond held by the same hands appeared in his mind. He shook his head, a shiver running down his spine.

“I knew a man,” the Captain said and he sounded wistful, sad. “Who traveled to America for the same reason.”

Bucky leaned against the bookcase and crossed his ankles. “What happened to him?”

He exhaled heavily. “He died.”

He sounded so heartbroken, Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. The sound of his voice… there was something there… something familiar… His gaze fell again on the man’s hands and instead of a pocket watch, instead of the Heart of the Ocean, they were holding a charcoal. He blinked repeatedly, feeling dizzy. When he focussed again, long, strong fingers were playing with the chain of the small object. Bucky opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Before he could say or do anything, a soft knock came from the half-open door and Doctor Banner entered the room. “Captain? The butler told me– ” he stopped when he spotted Bucky near the bookcase. “Oh, Lo– ”

“Doctor Banner,” Bucky interrupted him, relief washing over him. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise,” he answered, politely.

“Doctor,” the Captain greeted, politely.

“I was just going to grab a book,” Bucky felt the need to justify himself. “Please, proceed. I will be out of here in a moment.”

Banner nodded and walked towards the wheelchair, laying his bag on a nearby table that had been cleared and pushed against the wall. Bucky wondered which plans Becca had for this room. Hogan had said something about more beds…

“I will take the bandage off, Captain,” Banner was saying, as Bucky reprised his search. “Doctor Erskine wrote me a letter regarding the procedure and I am confident everything will go as planned. It’s absolutely outstanding what he managed to do.”

“Of course, I am sure too,” he replied. “I am still sensitive to light, so Doctor Erskine preferred to cover my eyes for the travel.”

“So he told in his letter.”

Finally, Bucky found the book, squeezed in a place it was not supposed to be, and turned towards the door to leave. He threw a final look towards the two men. Banner was slowly uncovering the eyes of the Captain, who was fiddling more nervously than ever with his pocket watch. When the first layer lifted, the Captain’s hands shook so much he dropped it. Instinctively, he leaned forward, but Banner stopped him with a warning.

“I have got it,” Bucky heard himself say, and in a second he crossed the room and reached forward to pick up the fallen watch.

It had opened in the fall.

Bucky looked down and froze on the spot. In the case, opposite to the face of the clock, there was a portrait. It was old and battered and it was clear that the sheet had been folded numerous times to fit in the small space. It was the face of a man at the end of his adolescence. He had short, curly hair and an unsure smile. There were crinkles of happiness at the corner of his eyes.

Bucky’s eyes.

> _He was clutching a small dime between his index and middle finger._
> 
> _“Paying customer,”_
> 
> _“On the sofa, paying customer.”_

Bucky gaped, his head was spinning, his lungs weren’t working properly.

> _The sensation of the upholstery against his naked skin._

He leaned against the table.

> _“Tell me when it looks right to you,”_
> 
> _“Put your arm back the way it was… Right, put that other arm up, that hand right by your face there… Right, now... just bend your left leg a little and... A-and head down.”_

He had drawn him, he had drawn him like an ancient hero.

> _“Eyes on me, keep them on me.”_

He had saved him and he had understood him like nobody else before. _I see you_. He had seen right through Bucky’s façade and he had grasped his utter essence. He had loved his soul.

> _I will remember this, only this, only this little detail, thin blond locks on blue eyes, until the day I die_.

How could he forget him? How could he forget his smile and the feeling of his lips against his skin? How could he forget his eyes closing in pleasure and his eyelids fluttering and his laughter and his jokes? How could he forget the way in which he had made his heart beat faster and faster inside his chest? How could he forget the way in which he had showed his world? How could he forget his determination and his courage and his desperation and his anger? He had promised him: _I’m with you till the end of the line._

> _“I can’t imagine Monsieur Monet blushing.”_
> 
> _“He does landscapes.”_

Bucky blinked once, twice, his ears ringing. Doctor Banner was standing between him and… him and… he was slowly lifting the last layer of gauze from… from… from his eyes. His blue eyes. He squinted and tried to get used to the afternoon light coming from the window beside him. Little tears formed at the corners and Banner was talking and he was… he was…

He looked right at Bucky.

And Bucky looked straight at him.

Time was a funny thing. It stretched and stretched or rushed and rushed. It passed slowly or quickly. And yet the tick-tock of the clock followed always the same rhythm.

Memory was a funny thing too. You could remember everything of a person and just lose that small, minuscule detail and then, out of the blue, you noticed it and you’d be like, _oh yes, of course_. It has always been there.

Bucky Barnes had known a man for a bit less of five days. He had loved him for a bit less than five days. Then he had forgotten him for six years. And yet he had mourned him for six years, without even knowing. And yet he had always been there.

_Oh yes, of course._

“ _Steve_.”

Steve Rogers had known a man for a bit less of five days. Then he had read his name among the list of the deceased in the biggest shipwreck in recent history. James Barnes. Such a common name, if you think about it. The Titanic had thousands of passengers, after all. He had read his name and he had loved and mourned him for six years, keeping him always close to his heart. And yet he was there, in front of him, alive and well.

_Oh yes, of course._

“ _Bucky_.”

_“Listen to me, Bucky. We’re gettin’ outta this. We’re going to Coney Island and then ‘ll come back to England with y-you. ‘ll help you m-manage your c-castle, drag it outta trouble.”_

_“P-promise me.”_

_“P-promise. We’ll get there, me an’ you. In your c-castle.”_

_“End o’ the line.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of references before the meltdown.
> 
> Dickebusch is a real (small) battle in which the 107th fought in the Great War.
> 
> No, Steve could have never made Captain in such a short time, considering his social status. This is an artistic license of mine. In the best case scenario, he could have become a Lieutenant.
> 
> The 92nd was a real battalion composed exclusively of African-American Soldiers. The 92nd and the 107th never shared trenches, though. I just wanted Sam Wilson to make a cameo. He was supposed to have a bigger part in this fic and I felt sorry for editing his character out.
> 
> Many estates in Great Britain became convalescent homes during the Great War. I am not sure if they ever welcomed American soldiers, though.
> 
> And now, the Acknowledgements.
> 
> **Ginny** :
> 
> Thank you for this amazing tour de force. My love to all the people who have read and kudo-ed and commented and/or will do it in the future. 
> 
> Thank you, [Kay](https://call-me-kayyyyy.tumblr.com/), because you have been amazing, and so so so supportive and you have _actually_ drawn gorgeous pictures of something I wrote. It's still unbelievable from my point of view. I couldn't ask for a better person to work with for my first Bang. I will miss our "Shall I post?" and our "Tumblr didn't notify your message. AGAIN."
> 
> Thank you to the [Stucky Media Mini Bang](https://stuckymmbang.tumblr.com/), you organized this at the right moment, it seems: I hope people will find a bit of happiness reading fanfictions in this difficult time. <3 
> 
> Thank you, Nonnie, for prompting this. If you are out there, please let me know if you got what you wanted!
> 
> And, as I said in my first note, thank you Marta and R for supporting me and helping out.
> 
> And guys, if you arrived here, check out the [other fanfictions of this initiative](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/StuckyMediaMiniBang)!
> 
> **Kay** :  
> I’ve been so so blessed to work with Ginny on this. Her ideas and writing are so visceral, it made the art so easy. I wanna thank my Marvel Art Party friends for supporting me along the way. You all got me through some big creative blocks and outright meltdowns ❤️ thank you to everyone who check out this work, commented and kudos. This fandom is amazing!


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